Writer or Wonk?
In my early blogging days, I tried doing politics for a little while — a very little while, actually, but I don't really find politics all that interesting. I am not consumed by the feeling that the activities of self-important, inside-the-beltway personnel (NB: "inside the beltware" is only about 5 miles from where I type this) is the most important concern of modern civilized life. At least, it shouldn't be. Yes, when the administration is doing things that I feel affect me directly in their stupidity and homophobia, then I reserve the right to vent my spleen. However, as a steady diet, politics irritates the bowels.
Part of the reason I wrote some political things is that in the early days it was political blogs that I read the most, and I'm frequently a writer who reacts to things I've read. Now, there was no particular motivation for that reading of political blogs, it's just that early on those were the ones I'd tripped over. Now, as time has gone on, I've followed links to other blogs, who had links to other blogs, so on and so forth for several generations, until I'm finally moving into regions of the Blog Venn Diagram that breath air other than the rarified vapors of hard-core political blogs and their camp followers. Besides, as I've noted before, I just didn't feel comfortable calling everyone by his first name, usually because I couldn't keep sorted which Dave or Kevin was which — clearly marking me as an outsider.
Now that I've read this piece by Lance Mannion, "A little jello wrestling, a little cheesecake, and, voila! Problem solved" I feel better about it, too. "It", in this case, is this feeling I have that my blog here just doesn't measure up because I can't seem to focus on just one thing (either something important, like politics, or something clearly unimportant, like cosmology or quantum physics, which I was never all that good at anyway being a classical type of physicist myself, which is generally deemed even less important than quantum physics).
I much prefer the smörgåsbord approach to blogging: an overabundance of delicacies presented for one's delectation. Unfortunately the meal may be followed by indigestion, but the delightful new tastes may have made the discomfort worthwhile.
Besides, this is the way my mind works, like an overstuffed filing cabinet in which the contents of the files keep getting mixed up with each other.
Fortunately, this is not a taste for intellectual stimulation that is universally reviled, even if it is universally ridiculed and rejected: just too, too Ascot in a NASCAR neighborhood. There are others like me, as revealed by Mr. Mannion, although it is clearly the case that we are a near-invisible group.
True, he was addressing the somewhat different rhetorical and tiresomely persistant question: "Where are all the women bloggers?"* Nevertheless, as he looked at some differences in blogging style, he established there are some of us who choose, quite to the uncomprehending amazement of the big guys, not to stick to a single subject, but to roam freely across our intellectual landscape.
Some of us actually aspire to be writers and not mere wonks. I think I can live with that.
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*The answer, of course, is they're the ones standing over there waving their arms and shouting "over here!" while all the "hot-dog male bloggers" look the other way and ask, their voices tinted with concern, "Where are all the women bloggers?"
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To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Monday, 6 June 2005 at 23.51
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There are many completely legitimate and worthwhile reasons for publishing one's thoughts on the Web, with no right or wrong to it. Seems to me if you're doing this 'n that, and are happy doing it, you're all set.
If your goal is to build a sizeable following and get some active exchanges going, a well-defined focus about which many people have an interest, maybe even some passion, is more likely to be successful than is a this-'n-that format.
As for "where are the women?", based on what I see on TV and in print, 95 percent or more of adult female blogging is the work of one person, Ana Marie Cox, a.k.a. Wonkette. At least, that's the impression I get because she's the only one getting any publicity. And boy, does she get publicity. She may just have a better agent than Madonna because Cox gets one hell of a lot more face time on camera than Madonna ever has. I expect any time now to see her doing a guest shot on the Weather Channel.