With blogging.
Blogging was never a kind of writer I imagined myself to be. As a kid a wrote short stories about rabbit with magic hats. As a teenager I wrote love poems. Lots and lots of love poems. In high school, the teacher always read my essays as the mark of a good essay. “Listen up, students. Today we will read Jennifer’s essay.” Eventually, I knew I wanted to write a book. Currently working on that…
But never a blog. What was a blog anyway? Until the late 1990’s blogs were still an underground, indie band that no one had ever heard of and it wasn’t really even until 2004 that they became mainstream.
When I broke the news to my mother that I was moving away, to a different country, pregnant with her third grandchild – her first granddaughter – I thought she was going to punch me in the throat. I promised that in addition to writing my book, I would make lots and lots of time to write about how we were doing here and take lots and lots AND LOTS of pictures.
My blog was born. I didn’t know much about blogs so actually 4 blogs were born. Eventually, even I couldn’t keep up with the grind of running 4 blogs so I changed each blog into a category (i.e. Our Buena Vida, Legra’s Laws, Pocket Full o’ Mumbles, etc.) and umbrella-ed them under the blog Drinking the Whole Bottle.
I originally started reading other blogs to steal borrow ideas that I liked for my own blog’s visual layout. But then I continued reading them because, well, they made me happy. Some made me think. Many made me laugh. A few made me laugh really hard, like spit-coffee-through-my-nose hard.
So today I give you a gift. For those of you who ask yourself (and me) “What is a blog? Isn’t that just someone’s diary? NO. And while I’m on the topic, please stop belittling people who blog by calling it a bloggy blog thingy or saying, “Hey you do that bloggy thing, right?” Like it’s something a baby could do. I dare you to try opening up your life and writing about it 3-5 times a week.
P.S. Some of us are actually good writers. Yes. Myself included.
A Blog Starter Kit:
Project Underblog – a submission based writing project. Great place to read new writers. I am ecited every time I receive a new message with a new post.
Love, Teach – just great. She combine two things that I love (writing and teaching) and anonymously writes about it.
People I Want to Punch in the Throat – Because if her title doesn’t give you the hint, she’s FUNNY sh*t!
Toulouse and Tonic – just as funny. Funny, funny, funny. and more funny.
Momastery – This was the first blog I really ever started reading. She’s “brutiful” (her word not mine) and honest and still really funny because life is funny. After I started reading her blog, she really blew up (not because I was readingher but b/c she was already on her way to awesome and now has a book out called Carry On, Warriors.
Kate Conner – like Momastery she is encouraging and witty and easy to read.