For your enjoyment, may I present a picture of myself in a midriff top.
Kidding.
But here is some navel-gazing, which could be construed as vaguely similar.
My semantics. Let me show you them.
I got interviewed by Avitable, who was probably expecting some short, flippant, exceedingly silly responses.
The fool.
Avitable: How can you reconcile the fact that you have a very quirky, funny blog that tends to thumb its nose at convention, but you also have a Myspace page with Hey There Delilah playing?
Golf Widow: My blog doesn't have a nose, nor yet opposable thumbs. Basically, it doesn't do anything that I don't make it do. Having said that, I don't deliberately thumb my personal nose at convention. I just try to be myself, because I have no experience being anyone else. That is how I can reconcile the fact that I am quirky AND funny AND like the song Hey There Delilah AND absolutely drop-dead gorgeous AND totally lying about the dropping-dead gorgeousness AND currently listening to Trini López.
Avitable: Give me one good reason not to think that Connecticut is one of the more useless states in the US.
Golf Widow: New Haven pizza. I have several more reasons, but you only asked for one, and I don't want to get disqualified.
Avitable: Who's better: Bill Watterson or Charles Schulz? Why?
Golf Widow: Bill Watterson was better at quitting while he was still on top and not submitting to commercialism. Charles Schulz was better at staying at his post to the bitter end and making it possible for me to own a stuffed Easter Beagle. Overall, I'm going to give top billing to Charles Schulz, because of holiday cartoons ("It's not a bad little tree. All it needs is a little love") and that Outkast Hey Ya viral video, which was superior to just listening to Hey Ya without the visual image of Schroeder playing session.
Avitable: Here's another one: Clive Anderson or Drew Carey? Why?
Golf Widow: Clive Anderson, hands (and necks) down. I got used to the British Whose Line Is It Anyway? before the American version started, so I had issues from the start with Drew Carey hosting and partipating. He was funny enough to pick one and do it well; instead, he opted to do both mediocre-ly, which isn't a word, but really ought to be. Also, Clive gets bonus points for the British accent, which makes up for his necklessness, and Drew Carey never had Eddie Izzard on (although he did have Josie Lawrence and she got bleeped, which almost gives him some bonus points back). Ehn, it's pointless to argue. Both shows are long gone, and Brad Sherwood still makes my toes all warm.
Avitable: You've been blogging for a while. What made you start, and is that the same reason that you still blog? Did you ever burn out or anything? What would you tell someone who was going to start blogging today? (Okay, that's more than five. I'm okay with that.)
Golf Widow: I'm okay with it, too. I guess I can tackle them one at a time.
I started writing online because I had a friend who did it and I realized I was getting more clever in her guestbook than she deserved — I had opinions and I had no right expecting her to provide a forum for me to express them. Diaryland was free and easier to set up than trying to make and design a website from scratch.
The main change in how I started and how I blog now is that, back then, I was appalled at the concept of writing a diary that anyone could read, and more appalled with the concept that there were people who wanted to read other people's diaries. (That's how long ago this was: web logs were for news and didn't call themselves "blogs" yet. You either had an "online journal" on Live Journal or an "online diary" at Diaryland.)
Now, I can't imagine my life minus the communion I have with the people whose blogs I read and the ones who visit my blog. I am always conscious that I have an audience of at least one person other than myself reading this crap, and I am writing both for myself and for that person. It makes me very diligent in trying to make something that is readable and entertaining, because I hate to waste anyone's time.
I've felt uninspired (and terrified, and furiously angry at myself and others, and completely fucked up) at times, but I think the main reason I've never burnt out or said, "I'm done; this isn't fun anymore," is that I don't make it my whole life. I try to write about things I think about, and certain aspects of my life, but never about every thought I have or every aspect of my life. Not only would people be bored reading it, but I'd be bored writing it.
Here is my step-by-step guide on how to keep an online journal, blog, or diary.
In case you haven't noticed, I've got a humongous crush on Prince G.
Although I imagine it's a bit hard not to notice, what with all my sighing and goo-goo eyes and watching of High School Musical 2 just to see what the big deal with Zac Efron is.
I hope he's flattered and not all, ewww, a stalker.
I'm unmeme-ing this, so you can just read it and assume I'm just trying to figure out my writing process without feeling like you're being tagged or reading someone else's homework assignment.
The original version was just "give your five greatest strengths as a writer or artist", and I did start there.
Then I thought I should go ahead and do my five greatest weaknesses as a writer too, as long as I was already in that meme-y state of mind.
Then I got all depressed.
So I cut the weaknesses bit and pasted them first. All the same thoughts, but in a different order, and voilà, I am cheered up.
My five greatest weaknesses as a writer:
I have no self-confidence. I think I'm good, but when I get shot down, I assume whoever has fired the shot is automatically right.
I second-guess my ideas. I trash more than half of my best novel plots because I feel like if they're any good, it's because I must have read them before. Then someone else does them after the fact, which pisses me off, but then I'm glad I didn't bother, since their versions are better than my version would have been.
I'm fussy. I know I should just plow through and ask questions later, but if it's wrong, it'll plague me till I fix it, and I often lose the thread in the process.
I have no patience. My first instinct, when people don't "get" what I'm writing, isn't to clarify myself, it's to smack them upside the head and demand to know why the hell they aren't laughing.
I'm in awe of everyone else. Even when I read other writers saying they have the same problems with the process, I assume they're just saying it to make me feel better.
And now, my five greatest strengths as a writer:
I make fantastic use of parentheses (and other punctuation). See?
I try to write things that I want to read. If I get bored or annoyed reading stuff I've written, how can I fault others for doing the same? Also, if I get confused reading something I wrote, I'll rewrite it.
I read voraciously. From cereal boxes to Shakespeare, there's always something to be learned about the craft of putting words together by watching how others do it. And if you think I'm kidding about the cereal, have you ever wondered why there wasn't an "old and improved" version before the "new and improved" one, and whether you've been poisoned from having eaten the "old and completely unimproved" version up until now?
I break rules if it makes the narrative easier to read. I equate it to my dad teaching me to drive and telling me to do whatever it took, no matter how illegal, to avoid an accident. Sometimes, you have to split an infinitive, begin with a conjunction, or end in a preposition, or your reader will fall out of your tale and have to find his or her way back in. I hate when that happens to me as a reader; I want to avoid its happening to anyone reading me.
I keep writing even when I feel like no one is interested. As long as I still care, there's hope for me.
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