Blog-on-Blog Action....gettin' meta

Since I really, honestly can't think of anything to write about, I surfed over to BlogRhet and tagged myself to play along with their thinky meme.


Your mission: Give one or more these questions a stab in a post (or series of posts), and then tag three more writers. If you don't mind, please link back to this original entry—we'd LOVE to track the progress of this meme with trackbacks.


1. Go back to first or early post. How would you describe your voice back in those early days?Who were you writing to? What was your sense of audience (if any) back then?


Y'know, I think I had some unrealistic expectations about this whole blogging thing, which stem from my lack of understanding of how internet traffic works. Truly, I figured many, many people would almost immediately find my blog and would be reading it from day one. The reality check came quickly.


2. Do you remember when you received your first comment? What was it like?


I just went back and looked. The first comment was on a dumb quiz that I posted my results, and the commenter is nobody I knew. I'm sure I was excited to know that someone had found my blog, though.


3. Can you point to a stage where you began to feel that your blog might be part of a conversation? Where you might be part of a larger community of interacting writers?

Joining up with other Unitarian Universalist bloggers (via uupdates) definitely hit that point home. Many of the bloggers in that network toss topics around, sometimes "officially" in a carnival, but sometimes unofficially as well. Unlike some of the other carnivals I've participated in, the UU bloggers seem to be responding to each other's posts and building from each other's ideas. The first time I played along was in a conversation about pop culture and UU, which have a tense, at best relationship at times. It was refreshing to learn that as a person who loves to wallow in the muck of reality TV, I'm not even close to alone in the intellectual, high-thinking world of UU.

Another time that made me feel like part of a greater writing community was when Melissa Summers of Suburban Bliss was on the Today Show and had the rug pulled out from under her. The "mommyblogger" community rallied to her side, and even my mom had an opinion!

4. Do you think that this sense of audience or community might have affected the way you began to write?

Not so much. I've tried to be conversational and authentic in my writing from the beginning. My best friend since high school reads, as well as my mother, and they agree that I'm not putting on a show.

However, what I write may have been affected. Because much as my mom and my friend may think what I had for lunch is fascinating, I know that the intarweb is not so interested in minutiae. Or at least not that kind of minutiae. I've tried to write about small moments that mattered. And a few big moments as well.

I've covered a few basic "themes" in my blog, which is rapidly approaching its first birthday. I've written, at length, about important friendships in my life. I detailed each of my children's birth stories. I've talked about career highs and lows, about health problems and money.

But my favorite posts are the ones that seem to come out of nowhere. When I'm writing only because I promised myself to write everyday (with weekends off, if I choose), and nothing seems to be coming, and then it all bubbles forth. When the subject veers to a new path and gets to a point of clarity, of reflection. I wish I could say that my writing is like that every time, but it often isn't. It's sometimes forced. And I usually just post a meme if I'm really stuck.

Which is why I started this. But the bubbles broke forth a bit. Hopefully they'll keep fizzing.