Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Michelle there?

The email started like this:
Anyone who wants to talk blogging is a welcome guest. My husband enjoys the medium and we talk frequently about it but most of my off-line friends are blank stares when I mention “blogs.”
And I thought
Oh, a writer, who wants to talk, how delicious!
That was my introduction to Michelle Mitchell.

Her introduction to me was a little less. A major brain glitch had me call her an hour later than I promised. I was embarrassed and goofy. She was gracious, wonderful, and forgiving.

I told she was the third person I knew from Alaska. Michelle told me about living in Anchorage. I got a picture of a place that was much more cosmopolitan than the average city of 300,000 people. She explained that planes brought people and packages from all over the world through Anchorage. I thought location, location, location.

Michelle talked with head and heart about the benefits that being six hours from the next big city can offer, how it gives a feeling of being set apart, how it takes longer for certain influences to get there. I said I understood a bit of what she meant, that my brothers live in Wyoming. She said she and her husband had lived in North Dakota for a while. We talked about the similarities and differences. It’s one time when talking about the weather made sense to me.

When I asked how she started blogging, Michelle told me her tech-savvy husband had suggested she start one, but what had turned the tide was a high profile murder trial. She explained how they searched the defendant’s blog for evidence — that led her to explore what blogs were about. We discussed our first encounters with blogs and how some blogs take on a “me too” commenting culture.

Blogging cultures became the conversational topic. We discussed hobby blogs, business blogs, mommy blogs, writing blogs — the people who write them, and the people who read them. Michelle said that she thought that lurkers aren’t rude, that people read newspapers without writing the editor. I said that Darren had reported that only 1 or 2% of all readers comment. Imagine if everyone did.

Michelle said that, when she first started blogging, she spent hours and hours preparing a piece for her blog — she posted about once a week. She explained that she couldn’t keep blogging that way, It took too much time and people wouldn’t know when to read. As a mom and a blogger, she wanted balance, yet do it well and right. She explained how she found her way to posting daily in shorter posts.

Recently, Michelle removed her stat counter. All of the reasons are in this post already.

This morning when I fired up my computer, I got this IM from a popular blogger:
I see you’re on scribbet.
That’s Michelle’s blog.

Once again, Michelle had gotten to the conversation before me.

I’m wondering how to fix that . . . I’m thinking another call to Anchorage.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

It’ll be curious to see what happens when the majority of people know what a blog is the way they know what a website is now.–Michelle Mitchell

Stop by Michelle’s Blog, Scribbit, and say hi!

Thanks, Michelle, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.