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i am a literary pole dancer Shhhhhhhhh....the baby is still sleeping and I do not want to wake him up. It is 7:25 a.m. New York time and usually by now he's awake and my morning routine is all about him. But alas he sleeps and the delightful aroma of coffee beckons. Hold on just a second while I go and pour myself a cup.... Let it be knowns that I really did just get up and pour myself a cup of Yuba Organic coffee with hazelnut flavored coffeemate. So...the other day while I was "dropping" on ENTRECARD I happened upon a reference to THIS WOMAN. (I will tell you more about Entrecard and how it works later.) Anyway, according to this woman, Robin Hobbs, blogging is not writing, and anyone who claims they are a writer based on the sheer fact that they are writing a blog entry every day is missing the point of writing. Here is an excerpt from an essay she titles, "Vampires of the Internet", which is written as a letter to a writer friend who has just decided she wants to blog: Ah, my writer friend. It is harsh but it must be said. Compared to the studied seduction of the novel, blogging is literary pole dancing. Anyone can stand naked in the window of the publics eye, anyone can twitch and writhe and emote over the package that was not delivered, the dinner that burned, the friend who forgot your birthday. That is not fiction. That is life, and we all have one. Blogging condemns us to live everyone elses tedious day as well as our own.. I won't get defensive here. I understand her point. Anyone can put a pen to paper and call themselves a writer. The same can be said about many professions. Can one really call themselves a cook if they cook every day? Can you call yourself a runner just because you ran around the block ten times? Are you a dancer if you take a dance class every day but you lack coordination and grace? And so on and so on and so on. I guess there are some things where an act of doing something does in fact define you. For example if you read then yes indeed you're a reader. No argument there right? In my opinion there are two kinds of bloggers. There are bloggers who blog to write, and bloggers who write to blog. And if blogging makes you a blogger...then why can't writing a blog make you a writer who blogs? I am a writer who blogs. I blog because I don't have the focus or the time to sit down and write a book. Yes I write POETRY, (Hmmm...I wonder if writing poetry makes one a poet?) I do so because I don't have to make a huge commitment. A poem is a condensed version of a short story. It can tell that same story in a few sentences. So it makes me question why blogging and reality television are so popular? It seems we are no longer escaping into the lives of fictitious characters, we are putting our real lives out there for public consumption and scrutiny. What drives us to do this? First of all you must have a exhibitionist bone if you're going to blog. In some cases the desire to be heard not seen is what makes blogging so appealing to so many. If I could not hide behind the veil of anonymity by creating a pseudo identity for my virtual life I would have never started blogging in the first place. I started blogging both as an exercise in discipline and in writing, and yes I must confess that self indulgent desire to expose myself to the world along with the egocentric belief that someone would actually be intrigued by my life. Of course at that time I was having an AFFAIR WITH MY BOSS, so my assumption that my life was intriguing was, it turned out, a good one and my readership reflected this. But then as soon as I met my husband and stopped the insanity of having sex with my boss, bent over his desk behind closed doors, that readership began to dwindle. I had read in one of my many books on writing that as long as you can manage a page a day then you'll be well on your way to completing a novel. This book also claimed that you could not consider yourself a writer unless you were doing this or more each day. Well I'm doing it, I'm writing a page a day....it just so happens I'm not saving it to my hard drive I'm posting it to a blog. So can't I by definition of that author call myself a writer? I'd love to get your opinion on this one. ****** Okay...Entrecard.
I can say a lot more on the subject, but you really need to go to their site and see for yourself. ***** I just came across an INTERVIEW with someone I had a love affair with many years ago. He is a passionate writer, (and I don't mean to KISS AND TELL but his love making was equally as passionate). Reading this interview actually made me long for him a little bit. I don't mean a physically longing, more of a mental one. I miss having someone who stimulates my mind. As much as I love my husband, this is the one thing that is missing in our relationship. Yes he challenges me in other ways, and physically we enjoy a great sex life. Outsiders say that we have something special and I have to agree. But we don't have much of a mental connection. This, I believe, is largely due to the fact that we are from different cultures. I can't write a poem and share it with my husband and expect that he'll be able to understand or appreciate it. In fact when we first met I shared a few poems I had published in a small publication with him and although he seemed impressed that something I had written was in print, he just glanced at the poems and said, "That's nice." So I miss that....and I guess because my Poet Lover represented "that", I find myself missing him just a little. You can't get everything from one person. I truly believe that. If I didn't then I wouldn't have married my husband. If I were under the illusion that one person could satisfy all my needs then I would probably never have settled down because I would be chasing a ghost. If you have one person in your life that satisfies your every need you are one in a rare few and are probably the envy of everyone you meet. Baby just woke up....have to go. More later. Love Rose
Stan Faryna - 2008-04-03 03:34:14 |
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