I have long been a fan of Anna Quindlen, whose New York Times column, Life in the 30s, was exactly the sort of writing I fantasized about doing myself. (She is a good role model for this, having won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary on the basis of her work in that column. Then she went on to write opinion for Newsweek, and you all know how I feel about that.)
Well, it was a lofty goal. The wife of our town’s mayor has a newspaper column, after all, and (ahem) I am pretty sure I could do as well. (But it’s all about platform, kids. It’s all about platform.) And then I found out that my local paper pays all of $10 per column to their columnists—not that I’d expected to get rich writing opinion, mind you, but I agonize over my compositions too much to make $10 a worthwhile reward.
It’s OK, go ahead: I’ll wait while you laugh. 🙂
I’m well aware of the irony that now I do it for free! Wheee!
When I decided I needed an Internet presence back in the spring of 2010, I began researching the websites of my competitors, colleagues, and peers in the publishing industry. I discovered, to my dismay, that almost all of them had blogs. Dagnabbit, I thought. Now I have to blog too. It just sounded like more work to me.
So I researched blogs. I read blogs. I learned that to be effective, one should limit oneself to a specific set of categories and write within them. I was told to write ahead, to have a reservoir of posts for the times when one was too busy to write, and I have. I began with just one post a week, later added a second, and now—and this is unbelievable to me, given my workload—I post three times a week.
But as it turns out … I love it.
I love it!
Blogging is currently my sole creative outlet (editing is very creative, I think, but it’s also collaborative and thus not fully mine). Although I enjoy many other things (garden design, photography, scrapbooking, and the occasional writing of poetry), I’m not actively engaged in those things as, being a one-woman operation, I have little extra time.
Still, it is sometimes a burden. I have tons of ideas, files both digital and paper full of notes for things I want to write about. I think about those things all the time. But when I’m on a deadline, I post something from my reservoir, and then I worry about that. There is a tyranny, here: The Blog That Took Over My Life. It’s been both my delight and my straitjacket.
Regardless, fourteen months into it, I must thank you all. Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for subscribing to it. Thank you for commenting on it. Thank you for commenting on Facebook or sending me e-mail about it. Thank you for bringing interesting on-topic news items to my attention (you know who you are), stories that later find their way into a blog post. (And thank you, in particular, to my guest bloggers, Billie Brownell and Michelle Ule.)
In this Thanksgiving week, I have much for which to be thankful, and you, my friends, are at the top of the list. Here’s wishing you all a Thanksgiving holiday filled with joy. And not too much pie.
Tweet: Writing a blog for fun and profit. Er, fun.
Tweet: I actually love blogging, something I never thought I’d say.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
I do my newspaper column gratis…but it does build a readership. My goal is to blog two times a week once I’m done with this part-time job.
Linda, I was told by someone who knows more about this than me that increasing my frequency would increase my readership, and it has. (Twitter has also helped.) Thank you for commenting — and happy Thanksgiving!
I cannot BELIEVE that you have been posting your blog since May 2010 – but there is the archive, over on the right! I’ve read every post and thoroughly enjoyed each and every one for different reasons – the breadth of observations and the sheer information about grammar and style has been a revelation(I thought I knew most of it, but most emphatically did NOT!). The ‘low-down’ on different authors, and of course, total encouragement of my addiction to books, books, books 🙂
For your blog, for your presence on Facebook, for your interesting and entertaining presence, and most of all for the friendship that has developed with you, such a warm and interesting person, Jamie, I send my own thanks on your Thanksgiving Day to you, over there across the Pond. xxx
Roz, I’m blushing. 🙂 I love you too! It should be noted that some “rules” are different over here across the pond (punctuation for sure, though I haven’t gotten into that yet, I think) so that may well be the source of some of your revelations. (giggle) Thank you for listening and taking the time to respond!