Poets like rhyme not just because it's part of their tradition or because it makes their poems easy to remember or because it helps give a musical effect to the lines or because it links the meaning of two words or because it can be witty. All true, but there is this other thing. Rhyme is an aid to invention. The poet says, essentially, I am going to force myself to think about possible words for the next line that I would probably have never considered. For the sake of rhyme, I am going to try out language in this draft that I would never have bothered with. And sometimes, as a result something fresh and surprising happens.

And that means that, for poets, rhyme is an aid to invention. As a starting blogger, back in 2003, I used pMachine software, which included a calendar in the sidebar highlighting each day of the month whether there was a posting. The blue highlights were clickable links and the purpose was to draw readers further into the site, but I loved to see the weeks fill up, without, if possible, missing any days. The challenge of daily writing all by itself was an aid to invention. The discipline of at least trying, of looking around for topics, of reading other writers and seeing if there was something I could contribute to their conversation. The image of the calendar as a reminder of my aspiration to write daily. The truth that along with the weak entries daily writing captured good things that would otherwise never have been written at all, possibly never even been thought about. So the calendar visible on the page, the habit and aspiration of daily writing, the not-so-intimidating format of a blog post, the appeal of having a real audience--all these things help make blogging itself, and a good blogging tool, into aids to invention. Bravo.