The Writing On The Desk...and The Walls

Back when I was in junior high, probably out of sheer boredom, I started writing silly, funny notes to nobody in particular; tucking them into the framework of my chair for whomever else sat at that particular desk to find. I remember it started during a particularly boring eighth-grade English class, where we were pretending to listen to the teacher preach about how Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle went from being an expose on the American meat-packing industry to propaganda on socialism. From there, my new hobby expanded to my Earth Sciences class; culminating when my notes became so anticipated that my identity was no longer a secret – to the students, or the teachers; some of whom were bemused by my creativity, others who felt detention would be in order if they ever caught me.

They never did – catch me, that is – because at that point, as I recall, I started responding to the writing people left on the desks and bathroom walls. One particularly big hit had been my response to the crude and not so subtle demand, penciled on my math-class desk, to “Eat me!” I quickly penned the response, “No thanks, I’m dieting”, which immediately revealed my identity to all who read it. The combination of truth and dry sarcasm (I really was dieting) was like a laser pointer in my direction. My school was a small one, where everyone not only knew everyone else but also their business; and my disordered eating habits were better documented than I realized.

These thoughts came to me tonight as sleep eluded me, and I thought to myself, “Isn’t a blog like those notes I used to leave under the desks and on the walls?” Well, isn’t it? Isn’t a blog just an adult version of writing on the walls? A grown-up version of stuffing notes into the framework of my chair for anybody to read and respond? I suppose it is…and I find myself hoping that my blogs will be as successful – as anticipated – and as enjoyed as those missives of long ago.

The Ghost Part of Ghostwriting

I have a secret to divulge: My cat Tazi does not actually pen the Ask Tazi! advice column here on Blogger. I do. Of course, if you were to read all the way down to the bottom of Ask Tazi! you would know that it was "ghostwritten" by "a human with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications", and this whole revelation would come as no surprise. Sorry to disappoint those who truly believed; but onto the next burning question: Are the letters real? Do people actually write to a cat to ask for advice? The answer to that question is...well, let's see if you can figure it out on your own!

As anyone who has read Stephen King's forward to his Bachman Books collection - which I am guessing includes me; his wife, the novelist Tabitha King; and....maybe his children? His editor? Okay, now I am grasping at straws, but the point is that in that introduction Mr. King makes a very important point: Every writer has their own personal style which, once you look for it, becomes quite obvious to the reader. Back when the Bachman books were first printed, people noticed similarities to Stephen King's writing; once the author was revealed to be King, people insisted that the writing styles were almost exact, and that the true authorship of the books had been obvious to them all along. I call bullshit, because ghostwriting leaves just that - a ghost of the writer's true style; an imprint if you will...but nothing more. At least, this is the case if the writer is aware that they write in a certain style and can therefore make a conscious effort to twist that style into an unrecognizable pretzel-like creation. Although this is not difficult to do, it is difficult to do well considering how difficult it is to write while concentrating on what comes subconsciously - in my case, my love of semi-colons; dashes; and ellipses. I swear that I have never met a clause that I did not like!

So...to answer the question of whether or not the letters in Ask Tazi! are real, completely fabricated, or what I like to call Lifetime Movie Network real (Inspired by real-life events! Based on a TRUE STORY!); I will leave that up to the readers...but in the meantime, feel free to write to Tazi-Kat - America's ONLY advice-giving cat - at tazikat@yahoo.com.

Oh The Blogs You Can Blog...

I have kept many blogs over the years, from my very first online update of the various areas of my life - posted so friends and family could keep up with me - to my all-time favorite blog, "As The Tummy Turns", hilarious tales of my love life. Tummy was a precursor of Sex in the City, having started as letters to and from home while I was away at college in the early 1990's, which later turned into emails, and then morphed into a full-fledged blog.

The blog, as much as I love it, was retired for two reasons. The first reason was that I met someone special, and I did not care to share what I had found with the world at large for fear of losing it. We are still together after several years, and I would like to see us stay that way. Blogging about the details of a personal relationship can be a sure-fire way to make certain said relationship will end - quickly, and on a very bad note.

The second reason this blog reached an unexpected demise was because the co-founder of Tummy - my dear, sweet, sarcastic, and flamingly outrageous friend Jimmy - passed away somewhat unexpectedly. Jimmy, who had been there for me through the trials and tribulations of my teenaged angst (we had met when I was only 14); through my mixed-up twenties, and up until the day he passed. With him passed a part of me, and that which had been ours was permanently laid to rest as well.

Blogging has not been the same for me since retiring As The Tummy Turns. I have tried to keep blogs on various topics, such as my return to school, but one can only cover so much ground before treading on the confidentiality of others. My online advice column, "Ask Koko: Practical Advice From A Cat" had a pretty secure following, but then Koko - a formerly feral cat - decided it was time to return to the wild, breaking my heart in the process. Maybe I will revive the blog with my current cat, Tazi. He already has his own Facebook page; and putting my first degree to use while hiding behind the anonymity of a cat was a lot of fun. Plus, the whole legal liability issue of "for entertainment purposes only" is encompassed in the fact that you are asking for advice from a CAT!

I no longer have time to keep up with my old NFL Sunday Football blog, even if I wanted to revive that old rag-sheet (which I do not!). I just don't obsess over football like I once did...like an old lover; it no longer holds the appeal it once had, although I would be hard pressed to explain why.

Other ideas for blogs I have attempted or thought about attempting are:

A) A dieting blog, sharing tips and health science for those who seek to lose weight without developing an eating disorder

B) Tarot readings, which I have done professionally, but some of the followers I developed started to seek my advice several times a week - and that was a for-profit service. I can only imagine how deluged I would be if I gave it all away for free

C) A photo blog, called "A Picture Is Worth...", in which I photograph and post scenes of every-day but unnoticed beauty. I am in the process of a project called The 365 Photo Project, in which you take a picture a day of whatever catches your eye. I am finding I have an eye for nature - particularly flowers - and my cat, Tazi.

D) A Stewie Griffin fan site. I have watched Family Guy since its première episode, and am an obsessive fan of that sweet little matricidal baby.

E) A blog of sensational and tabloid news stories. Since the Weekly World News stopped its print edition, there has been a gigantic void in publishing world...as well as a strange lack of news on the "Bat Boy".

I have never blogged for money or fame - although a little extra cash in my pocket would be nice, I prefer to remain behind the scenes - a news-writer, if you will, rather than a news-maker. I think that settles it. My "Clubhouse Blog" will be an advice column by my cat. Perhaps Scoop Away would like to sponsor it? Or maybe Whiskas cat food, by Purina? My Tazi would sooner starve than eat anything else!

No Boys Allowed! The Blog As Clubhouse.

I have just read a somewhat interesting article describing blogs as clubhouses, places where people of similar interests gather to read the latest news and share their thoughts via comments.

I can see how this concept could be true, but with the saturation of the medium this is where my thoughts split from the author's, who continues on to describe how your personal blog can become a money-maker. Unless you come up with a truly unique topic, such as the Julie and Julia blog; and you are a trained and/or professional writer; and you have the necessary knowledge to produce an accurate, well-researched blog, then the odds of such success occuring are astronomical. This is not to say that one should not try to beat the odds; just that one should not set their sights so high that they are blinded by the sun every time they look upward.

Reading and Writing Daze...

This is my so-called "process blog" because I am to post my thoughts on the process of writing. As a full-time student who has so many other commitments - family, work, and my personal health - I have to live by a very regimented schedule. I hate that. It's cramps my very essenece! However, I do what I must in order to stay on top of things, and have declared Wednesday to be my reading and writing day, because that is the day I do not work, and my only class is my Physics lab at 7:00 PM.

My first reading and writing day was yesterday, and I have to admit it went pretty well. Perhaps part of the writing process is to be disciplined enough to schedule time to write, whether you feel inspired to do so or not. Here I thought such discipline would result in me churning out utter cr@p, but it did not. In fact, I am very pleased with the results.

Old School...

Rebecca's Pocket - Weblogs: A History and Perspective

Above is a link to a blog article by Rebecca Blood, written in the year 2000 - epochs ago in the world of cyberspace. As an "old school" blogger myself - and by old school, I mean someone who has been blogging since before 2000 and remembers the use of the term "weblog" - I find it fascinating that I can add a link by simply clicking a link that is titled "link". At the risk of sounding like my mother reminiscing about her good-old-days, I remember when you had to type in the actual HTML code by hand! Sometimes, progress is a good thing...other times, it opens the flood-gates to inferior creations.

As I sit here trying to think how I should express myself - and how much of myself I should express - I return to the same thought: Just because you know how to type does not mean you are a writer.

Once upon a time, blogging was the territory of those who dedicated themselves to the combined crafts of writing and web-building. Both crafts took time and patience; both crafts could oscillatate between exciting and maddeningly boring; and both crafts instilled in their Creator a duel sense of Godliness and humility.

On the one hand, success in early blogging resulted in a sense of accomplishment: I created this! I researched it, wrote it, edited it, and published it - and people are actually interested in reading it! Yay, me!!! On the other hand, this accomplishment was accompanied by the knowledge of the time, effort, aggravation, and love that went into the creative process; resulting in the aforementioned sense of humility. Today, technical progressions like the amazing little "link" button and the profitability of offering blogging platforms has resulted in the ubiquity of what was once unique and, quite often, offerings of lower quality.

In reading - and then re-reading - Blood's article, I am amazed at the progressiveness of thought. Like a Market Forecaster, she predicted the changes that would come with the exponential growth of blogging based upon what she could currently see.

The first important point that Blood makes is the interactive nature of blogging. Media, which by its very nature is not interactive, becomes a participatory event. Instead of just reading the news as it is presented, early bloggers were able to package the news that they had read - from many different sources - and condensed it for their readers. It was as if the blogger was a human version of USA Today or The Reader's Digest, capable of offering opinion - and responses others opinions - along with the clearinghouse services that they offered. Suddenly, media was not just a medium of delivery; but a medium of interaction between those with common interests.

The second important point Blood makes is how blogging services (and Blogger in particular) brought change to the very essance of what blogging is. Due to a change in computer-interfacing, adding links to blogs was no longer necessary to blog. Say whaaaaat? That's like going to Dunkin' Donuts and ordering a "coffee, regular; hold the cream and sugar". This change - unpalatable to most weblog purists - opened the floodgates to new bloggers, and basically invited anyone with an Internet connection to join the blogosphere. According to Blood - and I am inclined to agree with her - this change was the tipping point between blogs as news-filters and blogs as public, free-form journals. This point segues into Blood's next argument: What is the definition of a blog?

As a former Communications professional (B.A. - RI College, 1997) and a current student of Biological Sciences, I am well aware of both the fluidness of language and the importance of preseving the meaning of words. Science avoids issues with the latter by insisting on the use of Latin, a dead language, but live languages are ever changing - just think of the words "gay" or "fag" which once meant "frivolous" and "worn out", respectively. Just as these definitions have changed, so has the definition of a blog. So what is the true definition of the word?

Blood is willing to concede that the journal-style postings have - by might or right - taken over as the accepted definition of the word "blog", but then what do we call the traditional weblog, which is still in common, if not as popular, existance? Unlike the original meaning of the word "gay", "blog" does not have any commonly used synonyms to allow one to distinguish between the two styles laying claim to the word.

Another interesting point made by Blood was one of self-discovery. Most if not all people like to think they know themselves. With the exception of the confusing, hormone-laden teenaged years, we feel a certain confidence in who we are and in what we believe. As children, we know what we want to be when we grow up; even if, as adults, we veer far from that path, we still remember the dreams we held as children, so firmly held were those beliefs. As adults we don't have to wonder what tomorrow will bring; we simply assume our day will, for the most part, steer the course we have set for it. Blogging can turn those feelings of unspoken confidence upside-down.

Blogging, to be perfectly honest, is a rather self-centered activity. People who blog are generally not writing about the local news from a neutral viewpoint. Rather, they are writing about what interests them and they are writing from their (sometimes very) personal viewpoint.

Many bloggers blissfully open mouths full of ignorance and allow their uneducated voices to flow onto the page without a passing thought to fact-checking. These are not the bloggers who will experience self-discovery, but merely the modern version of the age-old gossip columnist. However, as Blood points out by citing her personal growth experience, those who research their topics may discover their world view and personal interests/obsessions are not what they thought - perhaps because they never examined it so closely, perhaps because the research they have done has opened their eyes to different points of view, and tipped their world on its axis.

Blood's closing point is truer today than when she originally authored the article disected here: "We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions". Blogs have the power to transform the media into an audience-participation show, and media consumers into media creators; but we need to know when to say STOP! While in school, one of the first things writers are taught to do is not to write, but to listen; to observe; to read the written words of others; and then to react to it by putting it all down on paper - and then to edit what was written so that it has appeal to those outside of yourself and your surrounding circle. As fascinating as your Grandma finds your blog, I can promise that the works of Shakespeare have infinately more staying power.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate

For those unfamiliar with Dante's Inferno - and I am going to assume that is pretty much anyone who is not a literary geek like me - "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" translates to "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". According to Dante, these are the words that are engraved on the entrance to Hell. Those familiar with writing - for publication, or at least the hope of publication - will get the joke, and probably understand that it is not a joke at all.