Blogging to fame and fortune
Blogging is I suspect like reality TV, a new craze a couple of years back who's bandwagon I naturally missed at the hip point. This is very me. I only got a DVD player when Sam went out shopping in Sydney whilst I was the UK. At the time I whined about how a video was totally sufficient and cheaper to both buy and rent products for. My sister now tells me video recorders are heading down the toilet of technology past, along with gramophone, vinyl records, and unless you live in parts of Tasmania where mobile phone reception is out, CB radios. Sam's purchase in hindsight was very wise, but being a last on the bandwagon kind of girl it took me a while to see that.
As with any new craze, a lot of shit gets in by virtue of being first rather than best. Then comes the quality control and plethora of new young hip things on bandwagon, and the bar's up. Had I been quicker, maybe I would now be a blog princess scaling the giddy heights of first in-ness, but I wasn't, so only fabulous writing will get me there. Therein lies a problem...
I have decided that it would be much better to win fame and fortune as a blog author than as a more conventional writer. Naturally should the blank screen labeled novel I keep staring at (in the vain hope the spirit of inspiration will inhabit my body, as Whoopee Goldberg got inhabited in Ghost), cease to be blank, I may feel differently.
I swing, one minute I convince myself blogging and diarying and writing a couple of pages of get it out blurb as suggested by one of those how to be a writer books is useful activity. Next minute I am equally adamant that what I am in fact doing is creating obstacles, diversions, things that seem useful but are really just procrastination, cautioned in the same being a writer book .
Then I go, well it's all about practice, every time I read anything about Jonny Wilkinson or David Beckham the relentless kicking sessions are narrated in depth alongside that statistic that says that kids who do great things have usually practiced for twice the hours as those who fail to make the grade. All practice is good.
Optimism, pessimism.
Next up in the terrible mire that is my self flagellating brain is the caution that artists (same book ) are prone to self destruction as soon as what they claim to desire is in reach, apparently this is because we get off on being blocked, it's safe, it's a place of considerable sympathy so the argument goes. The latter's not true in my case surrounded as I am by infinitely capable get a grip just do it folk, for which I am grateful. Wallowing is I suspect not healthy and should certainly not be encouraged in my case where a worrying predisposition to it is hardly in hiding. This argument leads to, you have two offers of columns, and there you are worrying about your blog and a novel in a coma, what are you woman, crazy? Write the sodding columns
The problem with columns, much as I want them, is that they are not as easy to write as a blog. In a blog I feel like I can just be me, aware that my audience know me enough to forgive my weaknesses. In a column naturally I want to be Julie Birchill, who I suspect practiced a lot from a much earlier age than me, but she's my stick and my wit crumbles when measured against her.
So, I decided if my blog could just get famous then I like that girl from Washington who shagged all the senators, could bundle it all up into a best seller and whey hey, home and dry, a reputation to build on.
The only flaw with this plan is she's the only one I have heard of, other than Salam Pax, who blogged to artistic acclaim.
Sleeping with Senators sounds fun, and in the blog fame woman's case, lucrative which could come in handy as I am currently living off a creaking overdraft and screaming credit card. But pragmatically, less than five minutes into a presidential address and the words 'you'd just be whoring' become real. On the whole (with the exception possibly of Hillary Clinton who I have always found foxy despite the hair, but I suspect would not be up for it when she has big Billy Boy and a presidential campaign to think of) senators are a pretty unappealing lot. Chuck in the fact there's probably a rush of women thinking along the same lines as me not blessed with the genetic predisposition to short-arsedness and a hand that can't keep out of the biscuit barrel, it could be a humiliating endeavor. Imagine going all that way, wearing a low cut top, giggling seductively and listening intently to some dull old codger from Louisiana and losing out to some coiffured Amazonian who thinks current affairs is what she about to get into. That's before the whole question about how to get a work permit in a place probably accessible only to Americans arises.
So, I turn to Salam. Naturally I have always fancied myself as a Kate Adie character. Reporting from a war zone, and I am sure there must be vacancies. But, the reality of working in the place that currently has the highest mortality rate for journalists on the planet shatters the courageous side of my self image in seconds. Whilst I have always imagined myself as being able to charm myself out of a hostage situation, it's a theory I am not ready to test and that in the new wave of fanatics rather than just making a point hostage takers, looks decided shaky. This may sound yellow but believe me, if you'd hovered around the 18-20 dress size and just made it to a 12 you too would want to enjoy it before the ginger nuts forced a reversal.
The other problem with the Julie sails to stardom on the crest of her blog theory is that the writing so far, not to mention the editing, has not been good enough. Therefore I have decreed to turn over a new leaf, make the blog toptastic, and up the ante with spellcheck usage.
Naturally having lain down that gauntlet to myself, you can all expect me to vanish for a while. I will be sitting somewhere in a house in East Sussex staring at a blank screen labeled tales from a chocolate loving gypsy and deciding that, after all, the columns are not such a bad idea.
Julie
As with any new craze, a lot of shit gets in by virtue of being first rather than best. Then comes the quality control and plethora of new young hip things on bandwagon, and the bar's up. Had I been quicker, maybe I would now be a blog princess scaling the giddy heights of first in-ness, but I wasn't, so only fabulous writing will get me there. Therein lies a problem...
I have decided that it would be much better to win fame and fortune as a blog author than as a more conventional writer. Naturally should the blank screen labeled novel I keep staring at (in the vain hope the spirit of inspiration will inhabit my body, as Whoopee Goldberg got inhabited in Ghost), cease to be blank, I may feel differently.
I swing, one minute I convince myself blogging and diarying and writing a couple of pages of get it out blurb as suggested by one of those how to be a writer books is useful activity. Next minute I am equally adamant that what I am in fact doing is creating obstacles, diversions, things that seem useful but are really just procrastination, cautioned in the same being a writer book .
Then I go, well it's all about practice, every time I read anything about Jonny Wilkinson or David Beckham the relentless kicking sessions are narrated in depth alongside that statistic that says that kids who do great things have usually practiced for twice the hours as those who fail to make the grade. All practice is good.
Optimism, pessimism.
Next up in the terrible mire that is my self flagellating brain is the caution that artists (same book ) are prone to self destruction as soon as what they claim to desire is in reach, apparently this is because we get off on being blocked, it's safe, it's a place of considerable sympathy so the argument goes. The latter's not true in my case surrounded as I am by infinitely capable get a grip just do it folk, for which I am grateful. Wallowing is I suspect not healthy and should certainly not be encouraged in my case where a worrying predisposition to it is hardly in hiding. This argument leads to, you have two offers of columns, and there you are worrying about your blog and a novel in a coma, what are you woman, crazy? Write the sodding columns
The problem with columns, much as I want them, is that they are not as easy to write as a blog. In a blog I feel like I can just be me, aware that my audience know me enough to forgive my weaknesses. In a column naturally I want to be Julie Birchill, who I suspect practiced a lot from a much earlier age than me, but she's my stick and my wit crumbles when measured against her.
So, I decided if my blog could just get famous then I like that girl from Washington who shagged all the senators, could bundle it all up into a best seller and whey hey, home and dry, a reputation to build on.
The only flaw with this plan is she's the only one I have heard of, other than Salam Pax, who blogged to artistic acclaim.
Sleeping with Senators sounds fun, and in the blog fame woman's case, lucrative which could come in handy as I am currently living off a creaking overdraft and screaming credit card. But pragmatically, less than five minutes into a presidential address and the words 'you'd just be whoring' become real. On the whole (with the exception possibly of Hillary Clinton who I have always found foxy despite the hair, but I suspect would not be up for it when she has big Billy Boy and a presidential campaign to think of) senators are a pretty unappealing lot. Chuck in the fact there's probably a rush of women thinking along the same lines as me not blessed with the genetic predisposition to short-arsedness and a hand that can't keep out of the biscuit barrel, it could be a humiliating endeavor. Imagine going all that way, wearing a low cut top, giggling seductively and listening intently to some dull old codger from Louisiana and losing out to some coiffured Amazonian who thinks current affairs is what she about to get into. That's before the whole question about how to get a work permit in a place probably accessible only to Americans arises.
So, I turn to Salam. Naturally I have always fancied myself as a Kate Adie character. Reporting from a war zone, and I am sure there must be vacancies. But, the reality of working in the place that currently has the highest mortality rate for journalists on the planet shatters the courageous side of my self image in seconds. Whilst I have always imagined myself as being able to charm myself out of a hostage situation, it's a theory I am not ready to test and that in the new wave of fanatics rather than just making a point hostage takers, looks decided shaky. This may sound yellow but believe me, if you'd hovered around the 18-20 dress size and just made it to a 12 you too would want to enjoy it before the ginger nuts forced a reversal.
The other problem with the Julie sails to stardom on the crest of her blog theory is that the writing so far, not to mention the editing, has not been good enough. Therefore I have decreed to turn over a new leaf, make the blog toptastic, and up the ante with spellcheck usage.
Naturally having lain down that gauntlet to myself, you can all expect me to vanish for a while. I will be sitting somewhere in a house in East Sussex staring at a blank screen labeled tales from a chocolate loving gypsy and deciding that, after all, the columns are not such a bad idea.
Julie
posted by The Gypsy @ 9:24 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:38 PM,
Mermaidgrrrl said…
Ah blogs - the ultimate in psychological voyeurism and so much better than Jerry Springer. And whilst using the spellcheck is tempting, doesn't it feel kind of dirty too? I feel like a cheat every time I hit that "replace all" button to correct the words I've never bothered to learn how to spell properly. It's a stain on my literary soul...
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