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What if I told you there was no dress code for blogging?
Say the word “blog” in front of me. I dare you. I have always thought that to be a blogger, you have to be a certain kind of person. Two ideal concepts of “the blogger” come to mind.
My first image is one of a flannel-clad, bearded hipster who smells like the organic balsam soap he bought from a “really authentic” Haitian woman. Anyone else? Just me? Just me. People who talk about blogging always seem a little pretentious, a little too convinced that the world wants to read each and every achingly arranged thought-out premeditated syllable about their hyper-filtered lives. Then again, I’m not much of a fan of the artfully artificial presented as truth.
The other concept that comes to mind when someone says that word is someone like this guy–
–the type of blogger who tosses words on a page like he’s Emeril Lagasse turning parsley into a projectile weapon. This guy/gal knows exactly what s/he’s doing, down to every last keyword and SEO best practice. People like John Green and Ree Drummond, the ones who have made it big and know exactly what twist of a phrase is going to make their readers fire up the social media share buttons.
I am neither a bearded hipster nor a word artist of Food Network proportions.
Instead, I’m a writer with a passion for the semicolon and a yen for pop culture; from the Oxford comma to Orphan Black, I’m just a woman who loves words and using them to discuss the amazing things that people are doing with them. I’m a geek and a wordsmith, and I’ve recently realized that this is perfectly okay.
High school is over. This is not that scene in High School Musical. If you’re a skater who plays the cello, nobody cares.
Let’s get this pumpkin carriage on the road.
This is, first and foremost, a blog about stringing words together. Expect musings on the slow and tedious slaughter of the English language at the hands of auto-correct and other nefarious entities. Also expect discussions on the various places a writer can end up professionally. As a writer currently trying to navigate the freelancing world and looking into other professional possibilities, I have a lot to say about the job market, the writing of cover letters, and the usage of Ms. as a title. There will also be memes and puns, because life is too short and the internet too vast to avoid it.
Talking mice wanted: apply within.
Interested in doing a guest post? Have some wisdom to share? Are you a hipster blogger? Let’s have a conversation in the comments.
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