Can’t Stay in My Box — I Never Was Cool
I suppose if I were the savvy one, I’d wait until Monday or Tuesday to write this post. But I’m not. I’m the one who writes when the writing needs to be done. This post can’t wait until Monday or Tuesday, and darn it. It shouldn’t either.
The dialogue around the blogs that I read a lot and among some bloggers that I care about has been around one big question lately that keeps getting twisted and turned.
Do I write about what I know and want, or do I change what I write when I see big traffic come?
It’s time we talk about the rights of a writer.
The 9 Rights of a Writer
The 9 Rights of Every Writer is a book by Vicki Spandel that I found last May at a teacher’s conference. I’ve never found anything like before or since. I’ve wondered how I might share what it says with you, but until now the occasion has never come.
The 9 Rights as they’re written are meant for teachers in schools to help kids to learn to write as writers not robots. I’m going to share the 9 rights with you here and adjust them to fit where our conversation has been.
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1. The right to be reflective. If you’re having a crisis of what to write about, STOP. Breathe. Don’t do anything, except clear out your brain and give your mind room to have thoughts of your own. Take five minutes to look at trees or listen to music.
Everyone says to write your passion, to write what you know. How can you do that when your head is full of the clutter of information that’s everywhere?
2. The right to choose a personally important topic. Yeah, a personally important topic is the answer. That’s why the question came up. A personally important topic might not appeal to the biggest universe. Appealing to the biggest universe is one-size-fits-all, sitcom writing. The wider the pool the shallower the water becomes. The shallower the water, the more quickly it evaporates.
Who are those people on reddit and digg that are deciding what we blog about? Is that really who your audience is? How long do they stay on your site when they come? Are they really reading what you write about? Aren’t they the same group that decided what was cool in junior high school?
3. The right to go “off topic.” I can’t stay in my box. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. So what? Regular readers also know what to expect. Sometimes a change offers variety. I’ve decided not to worry about it. All work and no play makes Jack and Jill both dull.
Go off topic and let the world shake once in a while. Give yourself permission to be brilliant.
4. The right to personalize the writing process. This right is most important. If no one has made it clear, you should know — no two writers have the same process, nor do any two writers follow their process the same way for every piece that they write.
5. The right to write badly. It’s called a draft. Sometimes it’s called a final published piece too. No writer does everything perfectly. The goal is to get better than the last one.
I have a notebook of things I wrote in college where I actually wrote on each page good, fair, and poor. I did that in case people found it. I didn’t want them to think I thought it was good writing. How ludicrous! Now I keep it to remind me that I was once someone who thought writers had to write perfectly.
6. The right to “see” others write. The beauty of blogging is that we can share in our writing experience. We can look over shoulders and watch how people do things. We can ask questions. We can be learners. We can consider what we do important.
7. The right to be assessed well. You get to choose whose assessment you listen to, whose opinion counts.
8. The right to go beyond formula. Look around. The best ideas are always the ones you’ve never seen before . . . the ones that take something old and twist it into something new again. We don’t have to follow anyone’s rules as long as the message we send is the one that readers receive clearly.
9. The right to find your own voice. Voice is the part of writing that is authentically you, without self-consciousness, without worry about what the other kids or the teacher might think. Every reader comes to a writer looking for something more than the words. It’s not disregarding them to let them see who you are. It’s showing respect for them and respect for yourself.
I wrote this today rather than Monday or Tuesday because it’s not about traffic; it’s about writing. I awoke this morning wanting to say that reddit and digg have the power to be another form of peer pressure to write what they want. I think that peer pressure is best left in junior high school.
We should always care about readers. You know that I do. One way to show that is to give them the best me I’ve got.
I hope this helps with your question about traffic v. writing your passion.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Nice post Liz.
To show you how self centered I am. When I read your posts I think you are writing about me. I think in my mind, Liz just went to my blog and found something wrong and came up with a whole post about it.
Actually I have written two posts this week that I never would have written if I hadn’t found your site. Reading your site has inspired me.
My wife teaches mentally disabled children in elementary school, I think the label is TMD. She has a favorite song you might like. It’s by Harry Chapin and it’s called “Flowers are Red.” If you ever get a chance listen to it. I thought of it when I read this post.
Hi Big Roy!
I’m smiling big time over your comment. How much better can words get? π
Thank you, sir.
I know that Harry Chapin song, every word. Tell your wife it is one of my favorites too.
Liz, this post is one of the many good reminders out there why you are the official Den Mother of our crazy little band. Of course if you keep cranking out the powerful posts at this rate you’ll completely outgrow us! π
Big Roy, that song is truly one of the under-recognized greats out there.
Chris,
Thank you. I went to sleep last night wondering how I would follow such a great week that was running.
I’ve been doing all I can to listen actively and respond. Sometimes the words are a gift from heaven. π
Sell-outs are hated in every realm. Especially the blogorama where blogospheric-headed young youthfuls parade around in all transparent tantrums and doldrums.
Vaspers
You are a commenting poet and scholar. You’re right. It gets tiring to read the same souless writing from one blog to another.
Thank you Liz and Chris, my wife will be happy to know she is not the only who enjoys that song.
It could almost be a theme for this blog.
We must not focus on traffic, comments, or invites to blog conventions…
…but zero in on continual improvement ala Deming, and being astonishing ala Seth Godin, gonzo disruptive marketing ala Chris Locke and David Weinberger, bleating sheepish edge tech enhancements ala Web 2.0 blogs but without the blog visitor map and satellite image of their neighborhood as we see in otherwise excellant blog ecmanaut dot blogspot dot com, a comment poster here who I admire but wish to also scold mildly.
My stomach hurts from that OD pie I ate yesterday.
Thanks Big Roy,
I don’t think any of the folks who know me would be surprised to hear you say that. π
My point is that I’m writing this comment and Bennett Theissen easily excitable friend is angrily using Google Chat to berate me for not answering some question he asked six chat posts ago, as I type in this comment.
What I mean is we are all multi-jousting in polymorphous blogocombat and have no time to worry about traffic, site meters, comment niceties, being added to blogrolls, or forming cozy photo ops for WordCamp women.
heh
We are busy improving and new teching our blogs. We are doing podcasts and video and dreaming of telepresencing.
So don’t change your content just due to massive traffic boosts from 13 year old males who worship Harry Potter and Grand Theft Auto due to your posting of racier and sexier images and dirty words.
Vaspers,
You’ve got another post in the comments here:
continual improvement
astonishing ideas
gonzo marketing
without, I think, too many Web 2.0 gizmos
all of them lined up with top-notch examples like a gold-plated blogroll.
I have fun reading your comments.
So donΓΒ’Γ’Β¬ÒΒΒ’t change your content just due to massive traffic boosts from 13 year old males who worship Harry Potter and Grand Theft Auto due to your posting of racier and sexier images and dirty words.
Amen Hallelujah!
Liz, of course the You in my comment above is not you you, but the unwashed masses of anonymous plural yous out there aka lurkers who have dumbed down and pornified their blogs to increase hits.
Thanks, Vaspars,
for worrying that I might have heard you wrong. I always hold your thoughts within the context of what you’re saying. You’re a gentleman.
Trying to, ma’am.
Vaspers, you are killing me! π
Must. Stop. Laughing. Can’t. Breathe. π
Thank you for this article, Liz. It addresses something I’ve been thinking about lately, especially points 2 and 3.
This week has been totally off topic for my blog. I thought a lot about Monday’s post, just because it was off-topic, and off-putting to a lot of people today, but it was personally important so I put it up.
I’m not a meme kind of guy and tend to avoid groupthink, but Basil the donkey is so fun I just had to get involved and write about him. He’s developed more of a personality than some people I know. It caused a spike in traffic (thanks, Chris!). A lot of the people that came because of that post won’t stay once they see what the blog is primarily about, but that’s okay. I needed a laugh.
Vaspars – I thought I was sarcastic. You could give lessons!
Hehe, nice one π
I’m sure I could get more hits if I stopped musing about the writing process and started writing about JKRowling’s writing process – but I don’t think she’s all that good as a writer, really.
Chris,
I can hear you laughing all of the way here in Chicago.
Rick,
Thank you for saying what you did. I think that lots of bloggers hold back just for the reasons you stated here. But the relationship between reader and blogger is just that . . . a relationship. If we’re going to be authentic and transparent as we’re always talking about, then why not break out of the box and sometimes talk about things outside of it?
In my mind that’s called personality. π
Hey AdLib,
I’m with you on that. She told a good story in her first book . . .
She gets a big kudos from me for getting kids to read again though – especially for getting boys to read again. I’m willing to forgive her any number of literary sins and deus ex machina plots just for that, but not to the extent that I’ll start blogging about how she writes π
Yeah, me too, AdLib. I’m all for books that get kids (and grownups) to read more.
I’d rather talk to writers about writing.
While it is never a good idea to generalize, I’m going to do it anyway π
Individually, I’m sure that the vast majority of users of the social sites you mentioned are fine, upstanding web citizens. Heck, I’m one of them at times, and I’m decent folk. Still, they seem to take on that ‘mob mentality’ when they get tightly bunched together. Kind of like teenage boys, one at a time and they’re not bad, but throw a bunch of ’em into a paid hotel room and watch out (especially if they’re bored).
You really have to think about your target audience. The users of those sites can be a very volatile bunch, it’s going to be tough to come up with a long term plan that is going to feed off of those users. Maybe I’m just getting old, but that seems way too stressful for me. When I see sites that are intentionally targeting those users a really think to myself ‘They’re not going to be around long’. Some have, but it’s a tough way to go. As Clint Eastwood said in ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’, “…dyin’ ain’t no way to make a livin’…”
I’ve had some of my articles make it to the front page of those sites, and it’s hard to convert them into steady readers. They come, they see, and they go. True, my site isn’t geared toward that crowd so it’s not surprising that few of them become loyal readers. But then, I didn’t write those articles in an attempt to specifically target them, and that’s what we’re really talking about, isn’t it?
As a sworn representative of the Harry Potter Assassination Squad, a division of Eugene Douglas Mental Hygiene, Inc. of the distinguished consortium Absolute Improved New Reformed Insane Blog Media Network,
aka Vaspers the Grate,
I must say that I am working on removing all things Harry Potter from the akashic record of metaphysical recording of the universal saha worldling spectrum.
Yours for Miserably Servile Customer Pampering, Church of the Dreadfully Unchurchable Occult Haters,
vtg
Mmm – quite a few of my musings lately have been based around a conversation I had with Iain Banks in a bar a few years back – admittedly, I remember the conversation getting increasingly …hazy… as the evening progressed since we were sitting in a bar with a wide selection of whiskey.
Oh, here’s a neat little brosing article for you, by the way – “5 Firefox extensions you can’t live without” – I just found it and I discovered a couple extensions I didn’t know about π
Off Topic Marketing 101: to avoid being spammy, never speak of your own homey blog unless it’s an extreme blogging sport emergency. Discuss tangential angles of relevant, not trivial, topics associated with the thread concept.
To violate this principle makes one guilt trippy of Thread Jacking, the usurping that blogheads don’t fancy.
This comment thread is a fine example of the Slow Chat Room concept that I examine in some blurry and glum detail elsewhere.
Intense interactions with no one whining, turn the comments off, this has gone on long enough!
David,
Yes that is exactly what we’re talking about and you stated the problem of following the pack beautifully. I love the “Josey Wales” quote.
Thanks for getting us back on target.
I’ve gotten some good traffic from those sites as well and I’m always grateful for it. In some cases, I’m sure that’s how I’ve gotten some very loyal readers.
But I can’t write headlines to make their front page and feel good about my blog or my writing. It’s not who I am or why I’m here.
Vaspers, you really must stop by next Tuesday night for Open Comment Night. Although if you do I just might laugh myself to death!
Vaspers,
Breathe. You’re in entertainment mode.
Yes ME Strauss, you are adhering to core values of blogging in a strenuous manner after experimenting with close calls of Traffic Booster ploys to suck us into a blog glimpsing community.
A Blog Glimpsing Community, like Blog Explosion, the traffic boosters from boring land, the uniquely dull new visitor conglomerators, who spawn such things as flyby blog skimming and such rhino holes.
AdLib,
You’re right. At least I think I’m hearing you. In one out of 50 or so, there is something worth checking into. But we can’t let the crowd decide what we’re reading, even worse to let them decide what we’re writing.
Then we’d become sit-com list blogs about gadgets with celebrity photos.
Vaspars,
We are a bunch of intelligent people who don’t yell at each other and have a smart discussion about writing. π That’s why we like you.
We’re most sincere in our right to like ideas and writing and our right to like each other. We also like to laugh and be serious.
Sounds like community . . . doesn’t it? π
Yes ME Strauss, the William Shatners of the bloogyspherical bloatosphere, the Blogos Fear that permeates the dark switch nets of auto-cannibalistic vanity, they all plounce all over the place, drunkenly going where no blogger should go.
You are so correct to state that a blog community or blog glimpsing cult or cul-de-sac mustn’t determine, influence, or bully our postings and titles.
Short post titles are best for (2) memorability and (3) URL typing.
Vaspers,
I learned in publishing to write exactly as many words as it takes to write the message and not one word more.
Yeah, it’s also a question of time – if you spend your writing time or reading time chasing trends, well, frankly, you’re going to suck as a writer. Harlequin romances sell by the truckload, but they’re not literature – they barely qualify as writing. Blogging for the Digg audience is the equivalent of writing Harlequin romances, as far as I can tell…
but Vespers dear boy, don’t diss Shatner! He was a pretty good Shakespeare actor before Star Trek and TV ate his talent…
AdLib,
What a great analogy. That would also make a great digg headline . . .
Digg Offers Harlequin Romances for Bloggers!
Advice Librarian and Cree Maestro: you make me laugh. Grim, obnoxious, nearly dead Dada-esque Vaspers must go now and bother some other blogs.
But you are very funny and smart, like I aspire to be someday when Friday the 13th falls on a Thursday during a blue moon eclipse, that’s when I also plan to be funny and smart, and my business dominatrix who whips me into pitiful groveling shapelessness, she who is known as No Woman, she has promised me primrosedly that I shan’t be largely dismayed nor disappointed.
It was a promise. I must leave now. ta ta…
Yeah, me too – I’ve got a stack of dirty dishes that are looking at me with an accusing glare….
Bye AdLib,
Enjoy your Thursday evening . . . I know what you won’t be reading. π
AdLib, Thanks for sharing those extensions. There are some gems in there I didn’t know about!
Right #10
The right to share stuff with other writers. π
Far too many people have to subordinate themselves to others in most of their lives: working to someone else’s demands, sucking up, bending down..
Don’t do that in your blog. It’s yours: be free.
Or get a full head transplant, like I did.
Great article, Liz! I’ll keep it handy to help me stay on track!
As far as blog stats go, I’ve realized that they don’t do anything good for me. If the number of readers seems high, I feel self-conscious and get stagefright; if it’s too low, I feel like my blog is not a good use of my time. So, I keep a magic (and secret) number of readers in my head that keeps me feeling comfortable and, therefore, productive.
Well put Tony. Thanks for saying that.
We do give up enough in other ways.
Vaspers,
I can’t imagine you with any other head. You’re brilliant!
Cuileann,
Great to see you! Thank you!
What a great way to use your head, so to speak, to keep yourself productive and writing.
The truth is the stat programs vary wildly and to get a great one isn’t free. So we really don’t know how many folks are reading and we shouldn’t be worrying. One great reader who appreciates what we’re saying is worth the time it takes to write.
Why is it when you spend days researching a blog series and you finally take it from outline to fruition that nobody comes?? Your great idea dies a slow and painful death with nary a comment.
Yet you can’t give in to the pressure. You must put your best thoughts forward. Days later a wayward traveler stops by, fueled by a strange query from the googlebot. The stranger finds value and leaves a comment. The spam-karma engine almost flags it as spam since the post is so old. The comment brings new life and a new series is born… this time fueled by passion and a renewed vigor.
Comments beget comments and soon there are many. The posting path has gone from trail to road to super highway. The author who remained true to himself suddenly finds an audience. And the idea has found wings.
Timing as they say is … everything. Always write as if it matters….
J.R.
Always write as if it matters.
Those are THE key words.
Amen to all of the above, Liz. Very, very well put. The great, compelling writers are the ones whose voices are unique and whose passion is palpable–whatever the subject. Once I figured that out for myself, the process got much easier and, dare I say it, more fun. Or is it funner?
Hi Steve.
Thank you!
Funner. Yeah!
I knew I was a writer when other folks’ comments on what I wrote was feedback and opinion, not life or death decision, when I knew to measure what they said against what I already knew was there.
Great comment, Steve. Thanks for adding to the dialogue. Hope you keep on doing that.
I started my blog last year in July and, in going back over it, I find that my style hasn’t changed all that much but my WRITING has! There has been a marked improvement. Of course, my blog is highly topical and deals with the technical side of computers, but the process and ‘rules’ you promote are used (at least I try to use them). π
The one thing I have had to do is throw away a large chunk of ‘stuff’ I was fed during high school and, yes, even some from college. I’m finding, in fact, that my readers are more accepting if they can understand what I’m saying. So I use the old ‘Fog’ index and try to write to the 10-12 grader. From the comments I’ve received, my content is generally comprehended. Even college grads!
Writers should keep the intended reader in mind!
I’ll never be a Clarke or anything, but I get the job done one task at a time. π
Hi Handicapped Computerist!
Welcome!
Your words are wonderful. Every piece you write should be better than the last and it sure sounds like its and that you have found your “feet’ as a writer. You know that when other folks words about what you write become “just opinions.”
Teachers are just that teachers. We cannot teach you to write we can only point the way to good writing. You have to find the way to communicate the mesage to your readers.
Congratulations!
Handicap Puterist: you bring up a good point about writing on a grade level.
I mix a 6th grade reading level with both College level terminology and neologisms or random bizarre words from a dictionary.
My smart readers love it when I am esoteric, elusive, and poetic.
But I know also that there are many readers who are younger, and more than that: foreign.
So I use synonyms, alternates, and definitions in (parentheses) in my posts.
Linking certain difficult or unfamiliar words to Wikipedia or online dictionaries or glossaries is a good idea too.
Hi Vaspers,
All of that is good advice. Really, Thanks for adding it to the thread while I was out.
Liz