Barking Mad

The Lady Doth Protest Too Much

In this case, it's several ladies, protesting a lot.  

Much like Hamlet's Queen Gertrude,   I think a great deal of the women complaining about the image that attending a mommy-blogging conference has received, are in part trying to protect their own conscience about possibly contributing to that very image. 

image credit

In the 9 or so years that I've been blogging, both professionally or otherwise, I've never attended a blogging conference.   That's right,  no BlogHer, no Type A Parent, no Blissdom, and not even Mom 2.0, which, after meeting the amazing Jenny Lawson for the first time recently, she strongly suggested I attend.  She knows about my social anxiety issues and can relate to why I don't attend the conferences.    Hell, it took me 2 days worth of Xanax, and a close friend to act as an anchor (to keep me from running out of the room in a hot panic) just to go and meet Jenny at a book singing event recently . . . 

. . . so the thought of attending a large conference with up to 5000 other women, a lot of whom have spent the weeks leading up to said conference Tweeting and Facebooking about their panic to lose 10lbs, or find the perfect pair of shoes, or who can't wait to spend a long weekend away from the kids, the remote-controlling husband, and mounds of laundry, seems an impossible task to me.

While I'd love to attend a conference and think there's much still left to learn; a lot that someone like myself would find valuable and that I could apply to my own writing and blogging practices,  I can't even bring myself to seriously contemplate going to a conference without starting to hyperventilate.    So, after seeing the blogosphere virtually explode in a red hot fury in response to an article about mommy-blogging conferences,  it was with a great deal of interest that I went out to the Wall Street Journal to read Katherine Rosman's piece about what she calls "The Mommy Business Trip" 

I'll be upfront and tell you, and let me be clear so that you don't misconstrue what I'm saying, that I don't think the WSJ article is the sexist, damnation of mommy-blogging conferences that many are making it out to be.   While I think Rosman was patently unfair to Katherine Stone and completely took her statements about attending blogging conferences out of context,  and while I think the article came across as condescending, and as my friend Bob pointed out, the article seemed to carry an "implicit mischaracterization of regular business travel,"  I don't think her article is completely off the mark.  Let me go a bit further and offer some conjecture in that I think a lot of the outrage I'm seeing from those making the most noise about this is due, in no small part, to the fact that perhaps there's a modicum of truth to the piece? 

Rosman leads her piece by mentioning one of my favorite writers, Katherine Stone from Postpartum Progress - a woman who has contributed so much to the community within the blogosphere and even more to the greater audience of women she's been able to reach when writing about postpartum mental health.    As I mentioned above, Rosman completely takes Stone's statements out of context and makes it appear as if Stone is getting ready to jet-set off to a boozy girls-only weekend.   It tweaked me just a bit that Stone felt she needed to apologize to many, in response to the WSJ piece.  In this regard, the only person that should have done any apologizing is Rosman for pure lazy journalism in respect to the fact that she obviously didn't put any time in when it came to researching Stone's work and the high esteem in which she's held. 

That's where my own eye-rolling ended when it comes to the WSJ piece.  

As someone who is a bit of a people-watcher when it comes to the movers and shakers in the blogosphere,  and who considers herself an outsider (but not in a bad way),  I watch the Twitter and Facebook streams pre-and-post-conference and it's easy to see how someone could make the assumption that mommy-blogging conferences in general are little more than a good excuse to bail on mommyville for a long weekend.    Just take a peek into the Flickr or Instagram streams of some of these bloggers post-conference and the photos tell a story - not one of insightful dialogue during a panel discussion about branding or what to write about when it all seems to have already been written about - but one of shiny cocktails glasses in the foreground of all too-wide and slightly inebriated grins.  

While other more adept writers have covered the aspects of calling yourself a "mom" blogger and  The Innate Hazard of Leading With Your Womb; deciding to cash in your mom card and monetize your experience of being a mom, I'm going to talk about the more superficial aspects of why there's an image problem with mommy-blogging conferences. 

The BlogHer conference, undoubtedly the mother (no pun intended) of all blogging conferences, boasts an attendance of somewhere around 5000  (where's my paper bag?  Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out . . .) attendees, goes to a lot of expense and effort to promote the three-day event.  At a cost of $608.00 just to register to attend the conference  (if you're someone who is intending on writing-off the conference as a business expense, otherwise the regular "Blogger Rate" is $407.00), when you figure in hotel, travel, food, and incidentals, it's no small feat just to be able to afford attending a conference like this.  

With panels aplenty and past speakers like Katie Couric and Martha Stewart, and even  President Obama who addressed the BlogHer '12 crowd, and then sessions where you can learn from the pros on topics like, Technology,  Strategic Content Development, Blogging About Your Special Needs Child, Protecting Your Blogging Rights, and various other topics running the gamut from blogging burnout to maximum monetization with minimum marketing, there's something for everyone.  However, when it's all said and done, after a BlogHer conference you're more likely to see one of two topics in your Twitter and Facebook streams and in the general conference attending blogosphere - the epic parties and the picture posts to prove just how epic they were, or the posts where people are bemoaning how they came away feeling excluded because their favorite blogger either completely ignored them, they weren't invited to a party, or left without getting any swag at all.  

For every one post you'll read about how someone came away from BlogHer having really learned something useful, made connections with other bloggers, or were able to network with brands, and therefore felt their time and money had been well spent, you'll find at least three more posts about the parties, the swag, and the booze filled schmoozing.   

• When the most talked-about part of your blogging conference isn't the keynote speaker but instead, a party called "Sparklecorn" where people celebrate a massive unicorn shaped cake, get so drunk that the only recognition of the party itself are all the photos being slapped up on Instagram, you might have an image problem. 
• When more people post photos of themselves eating cheeseburgers and wearing fast food bags on their heads, than they do a photo of the lady sitting at a "Voices of the Year" panel who is absolutely moved to tears, you might have an image problem. 
• When you have thousands of women Tweeting and Facebooking about how pressured they feel to lose x-amount of pounds, or find the perfect pair of shoes that they can't really afford, all in an effort to be accepted,  you might have an image problem. 
• When you have more people talking about the parties, the swag, the late-night-drunken junk food binges, the booze, and did I mention the parties, than you have speaking about what a great conference and how much they learned at the various sessions, you might have an image problem. 

There are plenty of women that will admit that they've been to BlogHer (or any other blogging conference for that matter) several times, and at this point, they don't go for the sessions or panels, they go for the chance to get together with other bloggers, party, and yes, escape home for a little me-time.   If that's the case, why not own it?  Why get so agitated over an article that's simply calling it like it's more often than not, presented?  

In the meantime, until the voices of those who attend these conferences and legitimately get more out of them than a piece of the unicorn cake, or a massive hangover, are heard over the post-conference plop-plop-fizz-fizz of Alka Seltzer,  mommy-blogging conferences are going to continue to have an image problem.   Until then, don't roll your eyes and complain about someone elses perception, a perception that you might just be helping create. 

I Miss What This Space Called the Blogosphere Used to be About

I'm pretty sure the title to this post isn't going to win me any "brand" sponsorships,  but that's partly  why I'm writing it.   I'm not a "brand" blogger in the first place.   I never started out wanting to be one, and on the few occasions I've worked with a brand (always through the folks who run my ads, BlogHer), it's felt weird and almost uncomfortable.   To be honest, partnerships between brands and bloggers weren't around when I started to publish online.   I write and tell stories about my life, my experiences and struggles, my victories and my failures, and to a smaller degree, about my children and my relationships with them.    I don't know how to write about the merits of Super Special Detergent, without sounding like something I'm not.   Of course, if I were to have a disaster with Super Special Detergent that resulted in me losing my eyebrows, then that's another thing completely!  My readers have come to expect the occasional domestic disaster from me. However, I'm pretty sure that the makers of Super Special Detergent don't exactly want that sort of endorsement for their product.  

When I've talked about a product or reviewed a book I almost feel like one of  those older ladies on QVC that are hawking plastic storage containers.  You know that ones I'm talking about.  They're usually close to, or middle-aged (I'm getting close enough to that, thankyouverymuch), dressed in colors that are far too bright, and their outfits are accented by over-sized jewelry (there is actually a scene from one of the Bridget Jones movies in which her mum, having grown tired of the hum-drum life of a house-wife, takes a job as an on-screen saleslady.  I always picture her when I think about trying to write a post for a product I've reviewed) which is probably meant to detract from the polyester outfits they're adorned in.   They use their hands a lot and gesture widly sometimes, and all they're doing is trying to sell you on a 527 piece set of plastic containers that you'll lose most of the lids to within a month of ordering them.   But then a girl's gotta work and I guess shilling house-wares on cable TV is a good gig if you can get it. 

So is shilling shit on blogs apparently.   Or so I'm told.   Actually, more often than not, especially in the last couple of years, the implied message is, that if you're not a brand blogger, you're doing it wrong!     If you want to be anyone in the blogosphere, you have to have relationships with brands, you have to have a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and every other social media platform known to man and microchip.    Frankly, it's hard enough just being the narcissist I am, without having to divide my attention into spurts of 140 character or less conversations, constant Facebook updates, and then make sure I've cross-posted all of that to G+ and Tumblr.   Compound the stress of all of that with worrying about getting myself in front of a brand?   No thanks.  At what point do you focus on writing rather than promoting?    I understand that we all want to be noticed for our work.  I'm not going to deny that I use Twitter and Facebook for that very reason, but when I spend more time hustling for people to notice me, than I do actually writing, there's a problem.  Social media can become a huge vacuum if you aren't careful.   I've gotten sucked in enough times to know that I spend too much time out there just lollygagging, in addition to promoting blog posts.  I can't fathom having to "work it" any harder in order to get my face in front of brands. 

Consequently, a few weeks ago when I was in my doctor's office and the nurse was trying to fit the too-small blood pressure cuff around my too-large arm, she stopped for a moment and looked at me.    She said I looked familiar and then said, "Oh yeah, you're a blogger aren't you?"   I didn't remember writing that down as my occupation (I usually enter "writer/photographer/pain in the ass" when filling out forms at my doctor's offices) and I told her that yes, I blogged occasionally.   The nurse said, "No, I mean we have some older copies of Woman's Day magazine in the waiting room and I recognized you from one of the articles you wrote.  It said you blogged."  

I replied, (probably more abruptly than I meant to - because the article focused on my weight and as we can all tell, most of it's still here), "Yeah, that was me."     Plus, I don't get recognized that often for my prowess (sarcasm folks, I'm literally drowning the word "prowess" in sarcasm!) as a blogger.   

Then she asked me something that pretty much stopped me in my tracks, "So, what brands do you work with?  I bet that's exciting to get all sorts of stuff sent to you to talk about and giveaway, and to go on trips with other bloggers . . ."  By the time she got to "...trips with other bloggers" my eyes were threatening to roll all the way back into my head because honestly, I find it so galling that blogging nowadays is equated with hustling for brands, and selling their wares, rather than the stories that spurred an entire genre (Yes, I said genre.  While I'm not sure it's officially recognized as one, that's how I define it.) of writing.   

I know that last sentence in the above paragraph is probably going to piss a lot of people off, especially those who work very hard for the relationships they have with brands.   Some of these women have become brands unto themselves, while others sadly have just become caricatures of their former selves . . . the "selves" that used to write for the sake of writing and telling a story that others wanted to read, that others could relate to, and that their audiences found compelling enough to keep them coming back again and again.    

Eventually, or perhaps a better word would be, "inevitably" companies realized what a potential untapped goldmine the mommy-blogging world was, and started developing their blogger outreach programs and building special PR departments that did nothing but work with bloggers.    The assumption was that if they had a huge readership, especially if that readership was one of their target demographics, and those readers had built a bond of trust with the author, then they'd offer the blogger money for either availing their blogs of ad space, or working with the companies when it came to things like placing appliances in their home (free of charge)  and then asking the blogger to write about the appliances.   In some cases, the blogger has become the Bloggywood face of the brand or company.    If you can manage to do all that, but remain true to why you eventually jumped on the blogging train, then more power to you.    However if you only got on the train to be a brand-blogger and not a genuine blogger who cared about the words she wrote and the stories she told, and are trying to further the myth that those of us with no brand partners aren't legitimate, then in my eyes, you're a hack and a corporate shill.    

It also seems that partnering with a brand now implies status (and we all know - because the message gets shoved down our throats ad nauseum, that without status, you are simply, without.) and status is gooooooood. Status is God.

Apparently the drive to attain status has pushed some bloggers to the point of lying about receiving swag ("swag"  being products from brands/companies, for those amongst my readers who are thus uninitiated) from brands!     No, seriously, some bloggers out there pull this shit and get away with it.   Go on, read the article I linked to.  I'll be here when you get back.   

If the above article wasn't already infuriating, the writer (a blogger no less!) goes on to ask the question, "Do these bloggers deserve a scolding, or a little bit of admiration?"   Oh sure, let's admire the total and complete lack of integrity all in the name of climbing the status and recognition ladder.  Talent?  What's that got to do with it?    Baby, work that swag and fake it 'till you make it!    If that's not bad enough, the statement I quoted above follows the comments (quoted in the article) from Robbie Sokolowsky, who is the Creative Director at ICEDMedia, and as a brand manager, that he doesn't really mind when "bloggers do fib about  "free" gifts.  At least to an extent."   OK so let me get this straight, your clients are cool with aligning themselves with someone who lacks any principle, all because at the end of the day, your client - THE BRAND - gets their name out there anyhow?      

Why don't we just start breeding integrity completely out of the human race.   It would simplify this whole thing! 

Brands basically have used the trust we've developed with our audiences in order to sell their product to our readers.    It's implied that if I am running an ad for, oh let's just say, Tide, that I must trust the brand, and because I have a bond with my readers, they're going to trust my judgement.   It's the way the industry works.    I spent more than a decade on the air at major radio stations for Clear Channel all over the country.   Branding and partnerships, ad revenue . . . it was all part of the game and it all went back to trust.   Our listeners trusted us to bring them (Oh my God, I don't believe I'm going to use a positioning statement but here goes) Today's Best Rock, first, and most often, so why not ride that trust for all it's worth?    It's not really any different at all in the blogosphere, even more so in the Bloggywood part of the blogosphere. 

That's all well and good and I give accolades to the women who "went there" first and managed to make it work while not losing their voice or credibility in the blogosphere.  In other words, the ones that didn't totally sell out, or become whiny, entitled, self-appointed social media experts in absolutely jack shit!   That's exactly what's happened.   These brand relationships have birthed an entire generation of writers bloggers that got such enormous ego trips from becoming a Twinkie Mom (my knick-name for moms who blogged about shoving such and such product in their kids lunch boxes and they all lived happily ever after and had unicorns for pets!) because obviously, that single brand partnership is now somehow synonymous with being a savvy business-woman who can suddenly tell you how to rake in the dollars by attracting big corporate sponsorships.    The thing is, she can't tell you anything about attracting more readers to your blog and building a lasting relationship with your audience through quality content.   Oh, but here's a Twinkie, maybe you won't notice anything else. 

When more and more women (and some men, but I'm going to use "women" because the fact remains that the blogosphere is heavily saturated with women and they are the ones the brands target most frequently) started realizing that by being a "Mommy Blogger of Some Acclaim" meant getting sweet swag like a Kitchen Aid mixer, or regular hook-ups with Target for goodies from the store, they decided to jump in the pool and become bloggers too!    However, they weren't creating content, they were just angling for brand sponsorships or corporate recognition that resulted in either money or products.  

Call me a purist, but blogging never started out as a platform for building relationships with corporate brands.   It was a place we wrote about things that were important to us, shared our stories, commiserated with those going through similar situations, and just shared the things that make being a woman, a mother,  or just the experience of being human, interesting.    Over time the space evolved to include the monetization of blogs, allowing us to earn a pittance by giving some of our space to ad networks.  I have no issue with that whatsoever.  I use an ad network and I make a genuine pittance.   It pays for my hosting and occasionally I can save enough to buy a new camera lens.  Do I wish I made more money?   I don't know.   With more money comes more responsibility to consistently create attractive content, and as someone who suffers from depression, depression that at times can be so debilitating that I can't get out of bed or leave my home; I sometimes don't give enough of  a shit about the blog, or about writing in general in order to try and make a living at this.  

I'm not in any way envious or a "jealous hater" of those that do make their living as brand representatives and have strong relationships with corporations and don't mind those relationships piggy-backing on the success of their writing.   There's a delicate balance these women work hard to achieve - between representing the brand and still maintaining a place on the internet, a blog, where you're still going to find the same stellar story-telling that initially attracted you to that writer.  

I know my limits and know that I would make an absolute jackass of myself by trying to be the face of anything.   Plus, with all of my social anxiety issues and hang-ups, there is no way in hell you would find me schmoozing with brands at blogging events, which is pretty much par-for-the-course when it comes to getting your name in front of a PR rep/brand rep.     Hell, I can't even get up the nerve to go to a simple blogging conference.    

Just because I don't believe in focusing on brand partnerships,  it doesn't mean that I automatically hate all the bloggers that do.   It also doesn't mean that I won't run ads.  Running ads isn't synonymous with selling out.  Some of us realize that maybe we're pretty good writers when it comes to the confines of the blogosphere but we don't have what it takes to make a consistent living in the larger arena of writing . . . writing books -although we'd love to.  In the long run, we're writing and doing what we love.   So we take what we can get through our ad networks, or writing the occasional sponsored posts.   As long as it's something I believe in,  I'll rent you some space on my blog to advertise your goodies.    Yes, I'm sure some of us think that if we're running ads,  therefore making money, we are automatically literary geniuses.    Oh look, I earned $17 in the last forty-five days!  Move over Stephen King, ya'll need to make some room for me on the New York Times Best Seller's List!  

Then there are the real badasses that actually have managed to parlay their mad skills as a blogger into something amazing, and have launched themselves into rockstardom via their blogs.   They're the ones that actually have earned the right to tell Stephen King to scoot over!   It's pretty cool to hold the actual hardcover book of someone you've been reading online for years, to hold that book in your hands , and because of the relationship you've built up through reading that blog, you feel like you know the person, really know the person who wrote the book.    

I guess I've written all of this to say to the wider world of the blogosphere, I miss what you used to be an am not entirely sure I like, or even respect what you're evolving into.    That doesn't mean I'm going to take all of my toys and go home, it just means that I'm OK with the whole "You're doin' it wrong" thing just because I don't want to play the brand game.    I'm not a race car.   You can't slap your sticker on my ass and try and subsidize what used to be my integrity.    Although I'd be willing to bet my plus-sized ass that one of these days we see a blogging conference that isn't simply called BlogHer or Blissdom (although I'm just using these two "names" as an example and am in no way implying they'd actually do this!), but rather a conference that has a positioning statement courtesy of a brand, before the actual name of the conference, something akin to the "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl", or the "Hawaiian Punch Bowl."   Wait a minute, I'm pretty sure the Tostitos thing was an actual bowl game, and pretty sure I just pulled the Hawaiian Punch Bowl out of my ass, but you have to admit it would be a pretty good name for a sponsored bowl game!   By the way, Hawaiian Punch, you're welcome, you can send me any royalties via PayPal, hit me up for the address . . . *wink wink, nod nod.* 

If  I'm come across as angry, maybe it's not so much anger you're detecting in my tone, as much as it is a frustration with how blogging has turned into a game; a game that I  admittedly don't want to play, and that because I don't want to,  I'm seen as less credible.  "Oh em gee", they squeal, "How can you be a writer on the interwebs if you don't have a brand kissing your ass?"   Let's face it folks,  this evolution is becoming less about quality content than it is about who scores the biggest brand partnerships.  It used to be about the writing.  Now?  Not so much.   Brands used to partner with bloggers because of the that very thing, the writing!  The writing was what drew in the readers in the first place.   Now it seems to be a race to see who can write the best copy for the biggest brand.   At the end of the day, there's obviously a demand for brand bloggers because their readers are reaping the benefits.    If that's what you like, I'm not trying to tell you not to read those kinds of blogs.  I think I'm just asking you to be realistic and don't try and tell the rest of us that we aren't real bloggers or writers because we don't work with brands.  It's insulting.   Be a brand blogger if you want to, but own it!  And whatever you do, don't try and tell the rest of us, especially if you call yourself a "Social Media Influencer" (I almost can't say those words without wanting to gag because of who some of these "influencers" are!), that we aren't legitimate because we don't partner with brands! 

Being a nobody that brands don't know about let alone want to work with  gives me a unique vantage point.   Granted, I have my close circle of friends that I've met via the community that is the blogosphere,  and they're more - so much more than just the people who live in the box on my desk,   I'm not part of the glitterati, or the movers and shakers, and for that I'm grateful.  I don't have the burden of keeping up appearances or worrying about saying something that's going to piss off my brand or sponsor, something which might reflect poorly on them.  In a way, (of course I still have certain limitations placed on my writing by my ad network, but they are minor when compared to being the blogosphere's mouthpiece for a brand) I have the easier of the two jobs. 

Oh well.  Games or no games, I'm not going to change how I write.  I am imperfect.  I screw up from time to time.  I write about things that might be better left untold.  I over-share.   I'm human.   When it's all said and done, I want this to be a place where someone can come, ten, twenty, even thirty years down the road and say, "Oh look, she was at the bottom of the pit, fat as hell, depressed and miserable, yet she managed to live through it and tell the tale!  Maybe if she did it, I can do it too!"  

Ironically enough, two of my favorite bloggers turned best-selling authors have managed to do so (while being entirely unique and original brands unto themselves)  without trying to shove a Twinkie in my kid's lunch box, or slap a brand sticker on their backside.     However, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I found out they did have a unicorn and lived happily ever after! 

 

I'm Pretty Sure Social Media is Going to be the Death of Me, or at Least Cause me to Have a Heartastroke!

Alright, I'm crying Uncle! I never thought I'd see the day when Iwould wave the white flag and completely surrender to the fact that I am a Social Media Flunkie (SMF)!  Of course, there's always the chance that adult-onset ADD could play a part in this, but we'll leave that discussion for another day and just cover the fact that I'm a huge SMF!

You can't have a pulse in the blogging community and not be overwhelmed on a daily basis by all the blogs, sites, conferences and people telling you how you should be utilizing every aspect of social medial available to you, to grow your blog/business.   I'm not gonna lie, I want people to read my blog.  But more than that, I want more than just other bloggers (and this is where I'm probably going to be flayed alive, or crucified, or ostracized from the blogging community as a whole!  Or hell, maybe all THREE!),  to read my blog.  I want to build my audience! 

I want an audience of people who care about what I have to say, are entertained, maybe educated (or in turn, can educate me from the feedback in the comments or email), and want to follow the story of how I am changing my life in order to save it...as well as the occasional fluffy cat posts, raging rants, and the sporadic photo-bomb post filled with pictures of my gorgeous children.  So now that we have that straight, I guess I can just come right out and say that I want to conquer the world!  Well, alright, that's sort of being a smart-ass about things, but I really would love to have a network of readers who I know appreciate, are entertained, moved, or inspired by my words.  If that makes me a complete narcissist, so be it.

Here's the thing I absolutely abhor about this whole blogging thing though...it's all the bits and pieces that are so interconnected with it.  It's driving me nuts.   It's assumed out here that you have the same goals as every other woman (or in more and more cases, man) who sits down at her computer and decides she wants to be the next Heather Armstrong (Dooce) or Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman), and come hell or high water, you're going to do it!  So, accordingly there are a million sites out there that are going to tell you how to attain blogging Nirvana.  They're going to suggest you become a corporate whore and shill your words for free products, or paid posts or trips to DisneyWorld/Land, or even blogging conferences...but you have to follow the "plan" and know your "brand" which, oddly enough tries to mimic all the successful blogs out there. In doing so, these organizations/people/companies want you to pimp them via Twitter, Facebook and your blogs.   I'm really no one to talk, because hey, look to your right and you'll see that I'm part of BlogHer's advertising network...The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of these sites want you to think there's some sort of cookie cutter recipe you can follow in order to get to the top of the dog pile and by spending an inordinate amount of time on Twitter or Facebook, you'll get there even faster.  

Whatever happened to being unique and original and telling your own story?  Believe me, your words, told in your own voice have a power that can't be copied.

The thing about those successful blogs...the women behind them are, for the most part, talented writers, or there has been something that's happened in their lives to bring them attention or even in some cases, success.  It's their words, or their circumstances that keep people coming back.  Each blogger is unique and the honest-to-God truth is that you can't replicate that.  You have to get by out here on your own merits and not by copying what you think is going to drive traffic to your site, and sometimes that includes pimping yourself out on all these other social media sites!

I've used Twitter, well probably over-used it to promote blog posts.  I try and not pimp posts more than twice, but sometimes I get a little attention-whore'ish and want the traffic, so I'll toss the link up there one more time.  With Facebook I post the link to new posts once, and the Networked Blogs posts it again.  I do actually get a lot of traffic from Facebook, but I think that has more to do with the fact that I've got a lot of friends and family that use Facebook as a "feed" or "reader" of sorts...they aren't bloggers and don't know anything about feed-readers/RSS feeds and rely on me slapping that link up there.  So I'm not likely to stop using it anytime soon.  However, I need to get my ass off of Facebook in general, and stop lollygagging out there.   There are those who would disagree with me though.

Certain marketing gurus think that in order to have a successful blog, you need to be networking every available minute of the day on Facebook or Twitter and I just don't have the patience for that kind of thing, especially not when I can use that time to insert both feet into my mouth by posting dumbass things on my husband's Facebook wall like, "Please bring me some wood tonight!"   I'm sure you can imagine the comments that earned me.  What I meant to say was, "Sweetie, I am freezing my rather large posterior off, and seeing as how we haven't chopped that wood outside the deck, can you stop and pick up a bundle of firewood on your way home from work?"   Instead, I ended up with a huge group of people thinking I wanted him to bring home the kind of wood you burn in bed, rather than in the fireplace.  Sorry mom, for the mental image.

Then there's Twitter.   I have a serious love-hate relationship with Twitter.  I've asked countless people who are marketing managers and social media directors for their organizations if Twitter really is important, for someone like me - if it's important that I maintain a presence out there?  The answer was a resounding YES! However, this is me we're talking about... The Queen of Verbosity.  Having micro-conversations (140 characters or less), out there is not something I'm good at.   Occasionally I strike up the rare conversations with some incredibly beautiful, talented and intelligent women, but those are few and far between.  Plus, I am not part of the ongoing conversation between the Twitterati - also known as the "A-listers" in the blogosphere.  And if you haven't already gotten the memo, if you don't have their attention, you don't have anyone's attention!  

Seriously though, I'm OK with not having their attention.  I can't keep up out there anyhow.  Hell, half the time I forget to check my "@" replies until a month later.   Then there's the issue of not following back everyone who follows me and Oh-my-freaking-God...there's no way I can do that!  I can't keep up with the 700+ people I follow anyhow.   I feel bad enough as it is that I get out there and don't thank those that do follow me, with a personal DM.  Then there's the guilt that I'm not holding up my end of the mommy-blogging credo by not tweeting every frigging thing that goes on around here during the day.

For instance, I was wiping Gaby's bum yesterday and she asks me, "Mommy, how much longer do you think you'll be wiping my bottom?" 

I looked at her and said, "Are you telling me you're finally ready to start wiping it yourself?" 

Gaby thought about it for a minute and then pulled her panties up, flushed the toilet and said, "Well, I'm not even 5 yet, do you think we could maybe wait till my birthday before I try this on my own?"

Do you know what the very first thought in my head was, after this exchange?  "OMG should I tweet this, or put our conversation as my new Facebook status message?"   Of course I didn't, but all those "in the know" would probably have suggested that I should have.  Hell, I don't even like texting, because HELLO...160 characters just pisses me off!  I can't be that concise and I refuse to sink to the level of every 15 year old out there and resort to "text talk."   Not only that, but not everyone out there needs to know that there may be a chance that I'll be cracking open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate my emancipation from wiping my daughter's bum!  By all accounts, my failure to alert the Twittersphere and Facebook crowd about this exchange between Gaby and me has deemed me an SMF!

The fact of the matter is, I don't feel like slapping my "brand" all over God's green (or is it Al Gore's)  universe/internet.  I don't even know what my brand is.  This blog is me.  I'm not a brand...or maybe I am.  I don't know.  What you see is what you get.  I'm too lazy and just too apathetic to maintain the dialogue out there, that those, "in the know" say would make me a success.  I want my words to carry my weight...my words out here.  I can't convey, in 140 words or less, my story and frankly, I'm pretty tired of having every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there who have self-published a book on SEO, telling me I need to Tweet this or that, or annoy my friends and family on Facebook with my networking attempts.

This is my blog, my space out here to reach out, to vent, to just be.  I'm not some MLM hack trying to build my pyramid.   There's no sin in wanting to try and earn a little bit of a living from my words, and if this gives me the boost to do that, so be it.  But I'm not going to follow the recipe of someone who's never been there and only thinks they know how I could become the next Dooce, or Pioneer Woman.  I don't want to be them. 

I don't want to be anyone but who I am.  

I write because my soul feels better when I do...not because I want WalMart, Nestle, or McDonald's (I'm NOT dissing the wonderful women and writers who are part of their collectives!), to add me to their select groups.   I write because I think I'm good at it.   I write because I have a story to tell and I'm entirely positive that I am not coordinated enough to do that and write about my experiences with X.Y. or Z.  That's not to say I haven't tried, but it's not really what I like, or what I'm good at.  I'm simply calling a spade a spade.

At the end of the day, I can't keep up with all this social media.  I hate feeling guilty for not responding to each and every status update of the 1500 people on my Facebook friend's list, or replying to everyone I follow on Twitter.   I'd rather spend that time reading your words, and building the conversation that way, rather than trying to squish all of that into 140 characters or less.

Maybe I have this all wrong.  Perhaps I spend a little more time networking in order to build my blog.  But I just wonder if by doing that, I'm "preaching to the choir" so to speak?  How do our conversations grow any louder, or reach a bigger audience if we're just networking to one another?

With my luck, I've probably just burned every bridge I've built, out here.

  

Jumping on the "Stream of Consciouness" Bandwagon

  I had a post about breastfeeding (I am very passionate about this issue and after a couple of recent really heated breastfeeding-related topics in Bloggywood, I finally got pissed off enough to just say, "the hell with it!" and write my own!), but I was overcome with an overwhelming urge, after reading this post, by the gorgeous, funny, and oh-so-very-talented Marcy, to just go with what was rumbling around in my head.

I've seen a lot of posts lately that are written in the stream-of-consciousness mode, and whilst I'm not exactly sure I get what that really means, I'm just going to run with whatever my own interpretation is and follow the words that are in my heart and mind. 

I'll preface this by saying that what I'm about to toss out there might be rambly and at times, incoherent.  A lot of that is due to almost debilitating insomnia I have been dealing with lately.  For the last couple of months I have been unable to sleep...well, unable to fall asleep.  I usually don't crash until almost 3, sometimes 4AM.  I'm to the point now where I am going to go and see someone about it. I've put it off out of fear of being put on Ambien or something similar.  I had an absolutely awful experience with Ambien when I was hugely pregnant with Gaby and unable to sleep.  I can't risk any Ambien-hangovers in the morning either.  Being present, really and truly present for Gaby, is just too important. One of my biggest hurdles right now, in trying to take care of myself, is to stop drinking so much soda, especially Coke.  Especially in the evenings and I'm sure that doesn't help the insomnia either...although even on the evenings when I drink no soda, sleep still evades me. 

I'm ashamed to admit this, but I think I'd almost rather have a drug problem right now.  I know the soda isn't helping the insomnia, but it's a sonofabitch to get rid of.  It's literally the first thing I think of in the morning and if I could survive on Coca Cola and nothing else, I probably would.  The more stressed I get about trying to cut back on soda and eliminate it altogether, the worse my addiction becomes.  A few weeks ago I was down to one 16oz bottle a day...if even that much.  Often times I'd open one and get 2/3 through it and just forget about the rest of it and slam as much water as I could the rest of the day.  Now I'm back to 2-3 bottles of Coke a day.

See, I told you it was a 'stream of consciousness' type of thing.  Everything is just coming out of my head and through my finger tips.

One of the things that struck a chord with me in Marcy's post was when she mentioned "...Need to stop running in circles trying to make friendships with people who clearly have no time or space in their life for anything other than acquaintance level friendships."  I am so guilty of doing exactly that!  Especially when it comes to Bloggywood and the psuedo-friendships I've been forming over the past three years that haven't really been friendships at all, yet something akin to a mere acquaintance.  I think I've been too focused on trying to befriend the people that everyone else tells me I need to know, in order to get ahead out here.  You know what?  I don't really give a damn!  That's right, I DON'T GIVE A DAMN! 

I'm tired of living my life based on what everyone else says I should be doing, especially people who don't really know me, or don't want to take the time to get to know me!   I want real, lasting friendships with the people I respect, who make me laugh, who I can relate to and who share a piece of themselves that draws me in and makes me genuinely want to get to know them on a deeper level.  I'm tired of having people in my life (and this probably extends to those in my everyday, offline life as well!), who are only interested in being here when it benefits them and not because they truly crave anything deeper than that.  This includes the people who don't think I know that they've stabbed me in the back, shared my personal emails to them with others who in turn have gone and said some of the most heinous things about me to others...I know about it but for some reason I just haven't been able to cut you out of my life.  Well, that's going to change!

I know some of you might think this has to do with me applying to be on The Biggest Loser...but it doesn't, not really.  When I was able to finally get to the point where I could put the video together and accept the help that one of the most wonderful, funny, and beautiful women in the entire world offered, that's when I knew I'd turned the corner and that eventually, I'll be OK...actually, I'll be better than OK, I'll be damned awesome!  When I realized that I was able to accept Jessica's offer of help without obsessing about what she thought about me, and that I honestly wanted the help, that's when I knew I had gotten past living under this self-imposed rock I've been curled up under for nearly three years! In the bargain, I ended up making a wonderful, genuine friend!  OK, so our late-night phone conversations are probably not helping my insomnia, but what the hell!  Women like Jessica are worth a mine full of the rarest diamonds and to be able to call her a friend means the world to me! Sleep be damned.  Besides, I can sleep when I'm dead!

Even if I don't make it onto The Biggest Loser (and from here on out, I'm not going to talk about it any more, because I won't be able to, if I'm chosen), I know that I'm capable of so much more and I'm worthy of so much better...and that includes friends.  Being open about TBL really and truly showed me who my friends are.  These are the kind of people I want to draw near to me and get to know...not someone who someone else told me I need to read and comment on just because it's going to boost my own popularity! I don't want to be that kind of writer, and I don't want to be that kind of friend either.  

I want to focus on the real, substantial, tangible things in my life and not waste time on going after things that don't add joy, happiness and a real sense of friendship and camaraderie.  I want to be able to look back and smile on my life and not spend any more time regretting the things I chased that didn't really exist to begin with.

"Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people." ~Spencer Johnson~

 

Do I Really Want to be *THAT* Kind of Blogger?

 

I know I know...I said I'd post more photos from Meg's BMT graduation and I am still sorting through all 1500 of them and really REALLY regretting that I shot in dual RAW and JPG mode.  It's takes me twice as long to post-process them and at this point, I'm just about ready to forget playing with the RAW images and go with the JPG's because it's so time consuming and at times, irritating.  I genuinely love taking photos I just find the post-processing part of it, monotonous and at times, difficult.  I suppose it's made more difficult because I find using PhotoShop intimidating in the extreme and would really just prefer to shoot the shot right the first time, rather than having to deal with my white balance, tones, saturation, etc, after the fact.

BMT photos aside, something has been bothering me, eating away at me deep down inside since I got back from Texas.  I can feel it chewing away at my conscience and at times, goading me into doing something that would be less than stellar, and possibly hurtful in the end.

A while back Deb from Bird on a Wire and the brilliant mind behind Girlfriend's Guide to the Business of Blogging asked me to speak at this year's inaugural conference.  She wanted to me to speak about the business of being authentic and I accepted wholeheartedly and embraced the opportunity.  Deb and I talked about the fact that often times I "put it all out there" and she wanted me to talk about that aspect of my blogging and how it's opened me up to the blogging community as a whole and what it means to me personally.  Unfortunately, a mere day before I was supposed to speak, I became seriously ill and was unable to fulfill my commitment to Deb or the conference.  I was heartbroken and disappointed.

It's true, I don't often hold back out here.  Granted, not all parts of my life or that of my family is fodder for the blogosphere, but for the most part, I'm an open book.

I'm blessed to have a marriage that most only dream about and a husband who is not only supportive, loving and attentive, but respectful.  I have a great marriage.  However, that doesn't mean I want to spread the intimate details of my marriage all over the internet.  There are some very prolific bloggers out there who will easily and very openly share the details of their sex lives as easily as they would open their panty-drawers for viewing to a stranger who walked into their home and they're rewarded for their openness by huge readerships and in some cases, financial gain.  Being bluntly honest- some aspects of my life, present and past, are simply none of anyone's business and that includes my sex life! 

Yes, I do bear all when it comes to my battle with depression, morbid obesity and bulimia.  I've discovered that in doing so, I've forged some very dear friendships and let others know they aren't alone.  In return I have gotten some of the most amazing and encouraging emails from others who have been through the depths of hell and survived and support me in my endeavors to do the same. I do not believe for a minute that when the time comes that my youngest child reads my words, or if the time comes when her friends read my words, that it will have any ill-effect on her at all.   My older children read every word I write and have never had an issue with it.  True, there have been a couple of times when I've very openly and abrasively called out a couple of their friends and ya know, that's my right.  They get it. My kids know that I hold nothing back when it comes to their safety and those they associate with.  

Oddly enough, for those of you who recall this post and the outrage and ire it caused amongst the teenagers and young adults out there, I've made amends with the "young lady" and we had a long talk about the impetus for that post.  I never once made light of the fact that she's an incredible young woman, beautiful and talented and one of my favorite people.  It doesn't change my mind about some of her actions, but just the fact that she came to me and wanted to talk to me and spend time with our family before we moved to NY says a lot about who she is as a woman and as a person.  My point is, even posts like that aren't all bad and have their place and often times serve a useful purpose - a purpose that might not be realized for a while but eventually gets the point across. I have very strong opinions and feelings about certain things and you can trust me to express them when the opportunity arises.  That post was just an example of me putting it all out there.

I've connected with other women and parents who have lost children. The bonds are just as real and important as if we'd met at a support group held in the basement of a church.  The only difference being that we found one another via the internet.  

I was able to meet a couple of parents who discovered my blog through my writing about Meg joining the United States Air Force - and embrace them at the BMT graduation ceremonies in Texas.  Together we celebrated the amazing accomplishments our children had made and formed a tight-knit group of parents whose pride was most probably visible from outer space!

In the course of writing about my life in this blog, I've upset plenty of people, pissed off even more,  made people laugh and others cry, inspired some and even made some shake their heads in disbelief. 

I've also had an opportunity to share the jewels in my crown with you...my children.  At times I've written some things that have not been the most flattering when it comes to some of the questionable things they've done.  Oh sure, there are several occasions where I've embarrassed them, but never to the point of humiliation.  I don't think I've ever crossed any lines with my kids though.  We're very open about what I write out here and if there's something they absolutely don't want me to share, it doesn't get shared, which leads me to the conscience niggling issue I'm dealing with right now.  

Oh and believe me, I know that I could become, easily in fact, one of those bloggers who has a readership that envies the elusive "A-Listers"...I could "use my words" to satisfyingly eviscerate a person who made it their goal to make my life hell recently.  I'm sure, that by being very open about this, there are few who wouldn't support my anger and extreme distaste for this person. 

In the end though, what purpose does that serve at all, aside from my own?  All it does is make me feel better about being able to tear a person to pieces and have those who follow me, do the same.  

At the end of the day, I might get more hits and more ad revenue, but the single most important result is how it would hurt someone very close to me and probably alienate me from that person.

And seriously?  Anyone who needs, NEEDS to feel better by making someone else feel smaller or to hurt them intentionally is not someone I want to know or to be part of my life and it's definitely NOT the person I aim to be.

It doesn't mean I'm not tempted. Of course I am.  I've spent the last two plus years reaping the rewards of letting others make me feel like shit and not expressing and feeling the anger that I should have.  The lack of the ability to do this has cost me dearly and turned me into an emotional midget with an eating disorder.  I talked to my therapist about this, this morning, and while she agrees that I have a lot of work ahead of me as far as finding the anger and assigning blame for The Very Bad Thing to the people who deserve it and not to myself, is important, it's not the same as what's happening right now and that I'm not going to be letting this person walk all over me if I don't take the opportunity to verbally shred them.  In fact, it's holding my head high and simply letting it go.

This blogging...this "Business of Being Authentic" is important to me, but more than that, in my goal to always be authentic, I don't want to intentionally hurt those that mean the most to me.   I don't deny that it's a very fine line I walk at times...those of us who blog, all walk it.  Some cross it with ease, others never even see the line to begin with, or alternatively steer as clear of it as possible.  And then there are those of us, like myself, who are always cognizant that it's there and spend a lot of time contemplating the repercussions of crossing it, despite the obvious gains we might earn if we do.  We all have our own definitions of what makes up this line.  One of the most important for me though is to not hurt my children intentionally.  Really, at the end of the day it's not that important.  This person, this thoughtless soul, is simply not that important to me.

So, do I really want to be the kind of blogger who, in an attempt to right a wrong, openly tears down another person, and in the process of doing so, hurts a person she cares about deeply?

No...NO!  I do not want to be that kind of blogger!