Tuesday, February 1st, 2005...9:50 pm
I am blogger, hear me roar!
Here ’tis, the inevitable “why I blog” post.
I started writing a blog with the encouragement of my old mate Steev. A long time computer fancier, he had read an article about the changing nature of the net, and how its participatory character was being overwhelmed by a bunch of surfers who were all take and no give. He wanted to start a collaborative blog. It made sense to me, so he gave me posting access to WoodenSpoon. I think I made one post – I wanted my own scene. I lurked for a while then went to blogger.
I felt weird about commenting on others’ blogs at first. I knew that I wasn’t understanding the rhythm of the way people communicated. I seemed to make the last comment on lots of threads, when what I wanted to do was engage. I stuck my head up at Back Pages, where there weren’t many girls talking, and things began to be more fun. Like Link, once I found Back Pages, I always went there first. I still miss it. Damn you and your “book”, Chris Sheil.
I love the way that people expose themselves on blogs. A real favourite is the post Grogblogging post by Dave from Completely Biased. (Dave has sadly given up, what with Kim Beazley and all. It’s understandable). I loved that on his arrival home in the Blue Mountains he jotted down a list of key words so he wouldn’t forget what to say. Bless! And that Weezil suggested in comments that there should be accomodations made at future events for the socially phobic.
My favourite description of blogging is Georg’s – lap swimming for writers. I’ve always loved lapping, but been unable to do it consistently for a long time because of a crook ear (only 15 months on the public hospital waiting list so far). A nd I’ve always written, but it’s been either work or diary.
My two day a week research contract finished up in early October, around the same time I poured red wine into the computer. I found the absence of social work contact and blogging horrible. I turned into a creepy blog tart, eyeing off peoples’ computers when I visited. Ampersand Duck pitied me, and took me into her home office. My sister made fun of me, but looked after Sage while I logged on. Being at home with a toddler can do your brain in, and it is a powerful thing to be able to feel connected to a broader world.
I don’t have time to write a diary the way I used to – I used to write “morning pages”, three A4 pages every morning before you did anything else. It was a suggestion from one of those American self-help books about releasing your creative energy (in case you wondered who was reading them). In the section about having to do it first up, every day, she says you just have to get up before everyone else if you need to. Which is impossible with a newborn, and unlikely with a toddler. I have large scary boxes of that crap hidden away in cupboards, and friends who have promised they will burn them all if I go under a bus. (Like Manoly Lascaris did for Patrick White. Heh. And that’s another thing I love. People who dig puns and use the words “yay”, “sheesh” and “heh” a lot. I also think many newspaper writers would enjoy the benefits of strikeout.)
One thing that has really struck me in the blog world is the interactions between bloggers of different ages – there are so many young things with great blogs, like Jellyfish and Rachel of Quick Little Splinter. And blogs by older (ahem) writers, whose scope and depth of interest is inspirational (I’m lookin’ at you, Mr Tiley . And check out his raisin date.). I love that we all just meet here and read and talk about things that matter to us.
I’ve had a few odd reactions to my little pastime. My mum was just stoked that the computer she’d provided was giving me such pleasure. Like Link, I’ve told a few friends, almost none of whom have been here. Bitches. O doesn’t read it. Aah, let’s face it, he hears enough of my point of view already – which is what I call the backpages excuse – “I only do this to avoid boring my meat friends”.
We played Carcasonne with Nick Crustacean and his wife a couple of weeks ago, and it was funny to see the non-blogging half of each couple say things like “why would I read it, I already heard that story. I TOLD you that story! (That was O, BTW) My sister’s partner, who is both very self analytical and very motivated, asked me if I wanted to “make anything of it” – I don’t think so. My sister thinks it’s a bit sad, but she reads it from time to time and mentions things I’ve talked about. She’s very private, which is why I don’t talk about their family much, apart from the odd bit of unavoidable rooster slaughtering.
Of course, there are many readers (well, not that many) I don’t know, including my loyal readership in the United Arab Emirates. Bless you both. But I think of my “blog friends”; the way that I have “mother’s group friends” or “uni friends” or whatever. And tomorrow, I get to meet a new one, TJ.
I was a little bit glum tonight. Nothing to write about, so I thought I’d drag up this draft that was lying around. And it’s the participating, the writing something to put out there, that I value. I’m not glum now, I’m really engaged with what I’m doing, and I’m interested to see what others will say. (‘specially Flute now his faith in blogging has been restored by – of all things – watching bad telly.)
Over Christmas, at Mum’s, I was having some face time at the laptop in the dining room one night. She walked past and asked smiling “What do you call someone who’s addicted to it?”
Duffer that I am, it took me a while to work it out. A blogger.
36 Comments
February 1st, 2005 at 12:05 pm
must be an introspective kinda night. lovely post Z. me, glad i ‘met’ you at backpages.
February 1st, 2005 at 11:54 pm
Hey Zoe, wanna link-swap? I’ve popped you on the Knob…
February 2nd, 2005 at 12:33 am
I’m sure Martin doesn’t mean that as it sounds.
Nice post Zoe. Me, I just like to write and what better way to do it?
February 2nd, 2005 at 2:16 am
Me, too, Gianna. And no-one’s called either of us a “facist slut” here, which was how some charmer described you at Gibbo’s.
Martin, will do. I thought I already had, actually, but I’d put you on the feedreeder, not the blogroll.
And yes, Swade. The only better way is to get paid, but that’s much harder to organise.
February 2nd, 2005 at 3:21 am
funny to be called a slut when you’re celibate
February 2nd, 2005 at 5:10 am
so you don’t deny being a fascist? (sorry, channelling my inner death beast there)
February 2nd, 2005 at 7:04 am
!Muchas gracius Zoe!
Swade, I popped you on the Knob the other day as well, and you didn’t complain…
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:00 am
Great blog, I’m loving it.
I also hate being the last person to post a message. Sort of like joining a convo just as everyone’s leaving.
Thanks for posting a link to me too!
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:30 am
Bad telly abortion and other diversionary shite. Therapy my dear, all therapy. The cost of a laptop, broadband etc has more than paid for the savings by sacking Dr Mesmer and his theraputic mind leech technique.
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:31 am
I like the lap swimming analogy. Thats basically what it is for me – practice for when Im doing “real” journalism in a few years.
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:31 am
bugger you haloscan. it remembers my settings from months ago, hence all that lovely linkwhoring traffic has pissed of into the ether.
February 2nd, 2005 at 2:50 pm
Nic – You will never be as free again, unless you keep blogging. Relish it. The man has money but it comes with chains.
Thank you Ms Zoe. I am awed by your casual description of disciplined writing. This is the only time in my life that I’ve been able to do it.
I just adore the trans-age thing too.
That thing about being the last person – I end up thinking that maybe I killed the conversation. I do have a terrible habit of commenting at length in Serious and Heavy places, only to find not a single person in the next fifty remarks says anything about my ranting. Ignore him and he will go away.. but I’m not gunna stop.
February 2nd, 2005 at 9:55 pm
Wonderful post Zoe. Of all the naval-gazing that I have read on blogs this would have to be one of the most entertaining. And please, someone post a comment after this, I don’t want to kill this thing…
February 2nd, 2005 at 10:59 pm
The publishing world and journalism are getting smaller and narrower by the minute. Blogging isn’t what I (we) do before we become writers, it’s what we do as writers, now.
February 3rd, 2005 at 3:52 am
What a great post Zoe. It has taken me ages to get here because I am housesitting with no computer access, and can I ever identify with your description of yourself as the “creepy blog tart, eyeing off other people’s computers” – that’s me right now! I’m illin’ for my computer. I’ve just had to sneak home to read blogs for a while. How sadsville.
Thanks so much for the completely undeserved praise. I’ll go and freak out in a painful way for a while now, and maybe bite something. Maybe bite a parenting pamphlet.
PS – I read that self-help book too! Julia Cameron, ‘The Artist’s Way.’ It was useful in that it helped me to realise no Way am cut out to be an Artist. I can’t believe you wrote the ‘morning pages’! Kudos.
February 3rd, 2005 at 9:04 am
OK, a day late, I am already in a place of acceptance about being the last post. Although unlike Dave I don’t worry so much about killing the conversation as blathering into the ether when everyone has left the room…
Nonetheless, just had to laugh about your eyeing off of other people’s computers. I so do that everytime I am away from mine, even for a weekend. Did you mention addiction?
And wanted to reiterate what Susoz said about this being writing, not practice. Even though I have theoretically sworn off blogging (and reading them) to focus on other writing for a while. But the occasional visit to feed my addication is totally necessary. Especially after a day like today – when I looked after another almost 3 year old and a one year old for almost the whole day. How can people so small be so exhausting?
February 3rd, 2005 at 11:12 am
*Maybe* zoe’s cubby house in the trees is the new cool place for the kids to hang out, now that backpages’ tuck shop has closed down (and I was the little fat kid to slow to get there in time…but that’s OK, cos I got my own chocolate bars and I’m not sharing them with anybody and I’m gonna eat them even if they have melted all over my hands and… sorry, flashback)
February 4th, 2005 at 3:15 am
Nup – I’ll be the last…
Superb writing Zo – Steev says you got a blog award and I have no doubt why. I log on every now and again – sometimes just cos I’m procrastinating and because I always know I’ll find something interesting to read. There are not enough like you in this world.
You’ve got to love the artist’s way and yes, you’re doing it, the norties (00) way. As I said before – I wanna be like you when I grow up and have a blog of my own. Like when I don’t have writing as a 100% past-time of my day…
A pearler for all you beautiful bloggers out there as thanks for ‘connecting’
http://www.bozzetto.com/neuro.htm
February 4th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Jenster has got something there. Go girl!
I just wanted to log on, as a crazybrave fan, and thematically mention that Nabakov is the unapproached master of the last comment … among the rarest blogging arts. It’s as if he is always watching and waiting, looking for the endplay, when the real bloggers come out to play …
February 4th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Still on the ‘old farts talking about the greatest hits in all the history of blogging’ theme … Nabbers may have his gifts, but his fame is, alas, forever doomed to live in the shadow of the legendary Gummo Trotsky. Don’t get me started …
February 4th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
no, go on. This could be the never-ending comment thread. We could all watch each other go grey waiting for someone else to succumb
February 5th, 2005 at 1:54 am
Alas, the muse that presides over ‘the good old days’ appears to have deserted me in the new day. Do I understand correctly that you are a post-Gummo blogger Zoe?
February 5th, 2005 at 2:44 am
I only really started reading blogs half way through last year, and for most of the time since then Gummo’s site was on hiatus and there was little commenting elsewhere. I have trawled a lot of the archives though.
February 5th, 2005 at 3:08 am
Gummo in action was the real treat. Proudly lurking under his bed since 2002, the Gums was one of the ‘sphere’s unique stylists … and a warrior, by god, specialising in the crossbow. Which is not to say that he never took any blows. He did, a couple of bad ones. Yet the Trotsky standard never drooped, and he retired with many handsome trophies. I suspect we are unlikely to see his ilk pass this way again.
February 5th, 2005 at 3:43 am
does he have a trophy cabinet we can check out?
February 5th, 2005 at 4:29 am
A question often asked, to be sure. Yet it was in the curious way of this modest marksman that he tended to leave his catch scattered willy nilly all over the cyberfield.
February 7th, 2005 at 1:05 am
word
February 7th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
hi zoe, i have limited access with the great move and have desperately missed reading my favourite blogs – yours included. I loved this post and was reminded why blogging is rewarding and therapeutic for me. Congrats on your blog award, too.
February 8th, 2005 at 10:33 am
type
February 8th, 2005 at 9:03 pm
wha?
February 8th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
comment
(sorry Zoe, I was just trying to get onto the Jenster’s plane – is this an abandoned thread?)
February 9th, 2005 at 12:58 am
I don’t think it counts here, we have to find one at someone’s else blog. Someone else who will play, for preference.
February 9th, 2005 at 1:32 am
My plane departed long ago… and I missed it… Do you ever have those dreams where you miss the plane? What the hell do they mean???
February 9th, 2005 at 10:24 am
I don’t know. Missed your chance? Worried you’ll miss your chance? Anal retentive about punctuality? I’ve missed two planes, one when I was broke and it was in the pouring rain in New Orleans. It’s a drag missing planes.
February 9th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
I came within a whisker of missing a plane in Tijuana. We’d been living on credit card advances, and I was so paranoid about getting to the airport I had insisted we go there far too early. So because we were bored we set up a tab at the bar and drank too many tequila shots with tomato juice and corona chasers. We had to run through the airport, having been too drunk to hear the announcements until they mentioned us by name.
I spent most of the trip hurling in a plane loo (not recommended) while my bloke slept it off. We got picked up by his grandparents. Never nearly missed a plane since.
February 14th, 2005 at 5:37 am
I have only missed a plane once – final night in Timor (or so I thought)… Too much whisky, too much sex with Pork ‘n Cheese play thing, too much gnawing on his mummy’s bone which she’d sent all the way from Lisboa… (Yep, there’s a video to prove it…) Missed my last opportunity to fly on a hercules and had to fork out 600 bucks to hang about for bloody Air North – they suck – will forever after pine for airplugs and big beefy russian pilots that I was so looking forward to that day…
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