And You Don’t Stop….
I know, I know: on-again, off-again: worse than Oprah’s engagement(s). I’m sorry.
I had decided about three weeks ago that the jig was up: I wasn’t having any success carving out time to write, and I was depressed about my lack of success. So that, in my head at least, I started writing The Last Post, saying my farewell. Seemed the least I could do.
And then I met a student–Ella–and she read some of the old posts; and she wrote me. She wasn’t the first; I’d like to pretend there had been an outpouring of public grief and outrage over the silence of fake chinese rubber plant, but that wouldn’t be true. It is true, though, that I’ve heard from a lot of people–friends, colleagues, students, even complete strangers–who were sad that the blog had gone quiet. So I’ve decided to try again.
The problem, I think, is that there’s a particular size and scope and, well, sort of flavor to a blog post: it’s different from any of the other writing I do, in my work or personal life. I’ve come to think of my writing has having different sized “portholes”–sort of openings out onto the world.
At the smallest, of course, there’s the Tweet. Much maligned, there’s a place for Tweets; I spent most of the past weekend at the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, and I loved being able to follow the Tweets of attenders–at its best, it’s a way to attend more than one simultaneous session. And sometimes, if you’re really lucky, someone says something brilliantly Tweetworthy. Like this pithy description of the music industry from David Sitek, of TV on the Radio: “pedophiles pushing ringtones.” Now that’s a Tweet–if not a fortune-cookie stuffer. Tweets, of course, are limited to 140 characters.
Next up on the media food chain: Facebook posts. As some of you know, I’m on Facebook only by default: I find it useful to find and contact folks, and some use it to find and contact me: but I don’t really post anything there. I have my Tweets pushed automatically to Facebook, and since I have my blog sending automatic messages to Twitter everytime a new page goes up . . . well, you get the picture. A daisy chain of cats, each pulling the next’s tail until the last one yowls.
Next up, the blog post: for me, I try to keep it between 500 and 1000 words, though sometimes that means cheating by publishing a longer piece in pieces. A Tweet comes to you in a flash–overheard in line at the bakery, or when you’re riding your bike to work–and it takes no longer to Tweet it. As I’ve said, I don’t compose for Facebook; but then the blog post: it’s a different beast. The inspiration for a post may come as a genuine inspiration: someone sends along a link to a YouTube video, or a news story gets something going in your head. Many of the best begin as something light and evanescent like that.
But writing them takes a good bit longer. In this Return to the Blog, I’m vowing to limit myself to 45 minutes: after 45 minutes a post is “done,” whether it’s done or not. I really can’t afford, or justify, spending any longer than that.
And I think that’s been the crunch for me: I’m not used to, and not entirely comfortable with, sending writing out into the world that’s only been incubating for an hour or so.
Further: I worry that all of this “upstream” writing–the Tweets, the blog posts–may be draining the creek before it ever gets downriver to the bigger projects that I also have to keep moving: articles (both popular and scholarly) and books.
So let me finish this up tomorrow by trying to map a kind of complete ecology of my writing, from 140 characters to 400 pages, and figure out how blogging fits in, how to create the space for it, and how to keep it from starving out the bigger fish.
And thanks to all of you who are hanging in there with me.
We’re in much the same boat, I think; I got halfway into this morning’s post when yours appeared. I’m quite literally hanging in there with you…
Great to have you back, Kevin! And these are some interesting thoughts about blogging. As a blogger myself, I’m fascinated to hear more of your thoughts on the subject.
I wasn’t going to nag but it’s nice to see you’ve found a way to be friends with your blog again. Spew at will!
Yay! It’s awesome to read your posts whenever you update. This space is special and irreplaceable for us readers.
Bless you, Louise! I think we’re not even related, and yet you read: unbelievable.
You may not rule the world like, say, Charlie Sheen, but at least you always have something to say and I, for one, am happy whenever I hear from you ! Welcome back !
Your blog is a great forum for helping your students see writers in action. That you (the professional writer, editor and professor)consistently negotiate a host of writing pitfalls – time crunch, writer’s block, motivational black holes, ennui – and overcome them on your blog, illustrates the ultimate key to success for writers – discipline. Would be writers, your students, will take note of your grinding it out – 45 minutes or whatever – and should get the picture. Writing is work. Welcome back.