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blogging about blogging

I’m a rocking girl blogger

July 6, 2007 by Susanne


Well, who would have thought. I already knew that I am a blogger and I’m quite sure about the girl, ahem, woman part, but rockin’? Me? Thank you very much Hel. Usually I think of myself as more of a jazz person, but then, who doesn’t want to rock.

So I tried to find out where this button came from since I was a little uncomfortable with a button that was just for telling other (female) bloggers, “You rock!” and then have them tag five others until every single female blogger in the world carries the same badge. Not that they shouldn’t.

This button doesn’t come with a handy link like the Thinking Blogger Award that links it back to its original creator, but maybe it should. I spend an hour or two yesterday clicking from post to post, and I found out where it began: It all started with a post called “Why not start something?” by Roberta Ferguson. She wrote:

I’m starting something today, right here, right now. You get to be in on it. It’ll be fun and it will build us a community of one sort: girl bloggers. Or, better yet, “Rockin’ Girl Bloggers”. How do you like that?

As an aside, I also saw just now that she has a music blog, and on that I found a blog called “A Singer’s Life” complete with a Singer’s Blog Carnival. How cool is that? I have been looking for musician bloggers for ages.

So the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” button is for women and empowerment. So all is good. By the way it was totally meant to be stolen right from the start. I’m still a bit reluctant about stealing memes (or am I?) but Hel totally did the right thing. Because this badge is meant to be stolen. And if you don’t like it in pink because that clashes with your blog, or if you are not considering yourself to be a girl, you might want to look at what Jess did to the badge:


While this award is about power to women bloggers, I don’t feel particularly powerful at the moment. I’m spread a little thin (nice euphemism, isn’t it?) and am longing for summer vacation which still is three weeks away. And I don’t even like summer vacation! So, every time I don’t feel especially powerful I have to remember that the number of dear readers I have now would have made me all giggling with joy just a short year ago. And that there were quite a few people writing and thinking about pink shoes last month because I wrote about it.

So I’m going to tag a blogger or two. Just so they can feel a bit more powerful and part of a blogging community. Because there is such a thing. It is a little weird, it is self-chosen and in flux but it is a community. If you doubt it, just have a look at the Just Post roundtable.

justpostjune2007

Most of my favorite bloggers already are the proud owner of a rocking girl blogger award (and anyone who isn’t, feel free to grab it and make it your own), so I’m going to give one to:

No need to know how, who has all of three blog posts up until now. I found her blog through a comment she left on Christine Kane’s blog. I’m really looking forward to hear more of her.

Then I’m giving one to Sofia of Sofia says. She has about half a dozen blogs or so, but she either doesn’t do memes or she doesn’t get tagged, I don’t know which. (And we’ll find out soon enough.) She’s one of the few bloggers I have met in real life. (Actually I’m going to meet her just tomorrow.)

Then there’s Joanna of Joanna Bags. She already has six blog posts out. She makes gorgeous bags and I found her through the u-handbag flickr-pool. (And if you only remotely like purses I recommend to take a look at the pool too.

Now I have to go and teach another student so I leave it at three. I would have loved to give an award to every single blogger on my blogroll but then I would have had to spend three days writing about them all and you would have had to spend hours reading about them and that’s a little too much.

You know you all rock…

Filed Under: blogging about blogging, meme

Does a blog need a mission statement anyway?

May 6, 2007 by Susanne 21 Comments

Well. Does it? You can instantly tell that I was once trained as an academic because my answer is: It depends. (I often identify very much with Agnes Nitt the witch who is always in two minds about everything. She’s also a singer but that’s totally besides the point here. So I add it anyway.)

If your blog is needing a mission statement depends mainly on two things, on you and on your blog. If you have a business blog or plan to become rich by blogging you better have one. If you just blog for yourself and maybe your family of course you don’t. If you are a person who likes to putter along, be spontaneous, and do whatever she likes – no mission statement. If you are like me and require a plan, a system, and a list for absolutely everything in your life – then you need a mission statement.

The thing about lists, plans, and systems is though, that they can be as abstract as you like them to be. So while I tend to acquire goals like other people women acquire shoes I don’t necessarily stick to them. In the last week alone I have started to work towards a brilliant new career as a tarot reader, towards the total de-cluttering of the attic and the garage, and started learning a totally new way to play guitar though I haven’t mastered the old one in any way yet. The vision is always beautiful and then the pesky little details all get in the way. But back to the meta-blogging. (I’ll have to write about my new status as a professional dilettante some other time.)

As you can see I’m really not good at this blogging-advice thing but since I have thought so much about it and since the question of “how do I make my blog attractive”, and how do I get a better technorati ranking interests most of us bloggers I’ll try it nonetheless.

In my post about my current blogger’s block I wrote that I need a new mission statement. I have thought a lot about that statement lately. So I found that my main mission statement still remains the same:

I want to write a blog that I would like to read.

There. That was easy. Um. So what am I enjoying in a good blog? When I started this whole blog thing I found that I didn’t want to have one of those: “And then I went out for coffee and met Claudia.”-blogs. Who is Claudia? Why should I care what you had as a snack? On the other hand this clearly is a personal blog. Not a business blog. And since I’m me and this is mine I tend to write I, me, and myself a lot. When I read that I shouldn’t it only made me self-conscious. There are other parts of my initial mission statement – which by the way never was written down – that still apply:

I like posts that are longer than one or two paragraphs.

I like personal posts, but I like them more when the writer is still thinking of an audience. For example blog posts should be legible even for people who happen to stumble on the blog for the first time. (Hi, all you bag lovers who found me through flickr. This isn’t a crafts blog. I hope you enjoy it anyway.) On the other hand you don’t want to explain everything right from the beginning every time. Again, a balance thing.

I like to read blogs that have both deep and thoughtful posts and shallower and funnier posts. Again, balance.

I like to show how I live as a mother, teacher, musician, creative person so that other people, especially mothers, are encouraged to follow their dreams and do something creative. This I’m teaching mostly by being a bad example but at least you can point somewhere and say, “Well, it might have worked if only…”

So in this I try to reach out and say, “Look, you are not alone. There are other people like you.”
And then of course I say, “Look at me.” Because I like to be looked at as we all do. (And this time “we” means “us bloggers” or “us human beings”. I just say, because my husband pointed out to me that when I write “we” it always means “my husband and I”. Sorry. Or not. Mommybloggers are narcistic and egocentrical. Everybody knows that.)

But when you look I’d like to make what you see as interesting as I possibly can.

Since I have a life outside the computer I tend to post about 8 to 10 times a month. All the bloggers in the know tell you to post at least daily. But I say, “And who can read all that? And who can write that much?” Obviously there are people out there who can and I’m reading my fair share of them but I have to admit that there are several blogs I have stopped reading because there were up to ten new posts daily. Really. Sorry, but that’s too much for me.

So you can see that my mission statement is very unprofessional. But it can be since this isn’t a professional blog. It took me a while to realize this. At first I tried to improve this blog like a business blogger. I started writing magnetic headlines with lots of “How to…” and “Why… headlines. I took the free ecourse on blogging that Wendy Piersall is offering, and it did help me a lot. Until I realized that after all this is only my small personal blog and that I don’t have to follow every advice.

If you are interested in writing a better blog, making money from blogging and stuff, I point you towards problogger, Liz Strauss, eMoms at home, and copyblogger. I, on the other hand, have stopped reading this kind of advice-blog for the moment. (And maybe one can tell.) I have the feeling that the most interesting readers to my blog come through comments I have been leaving elsewhere. So that our blogs really are forming a web.

What about you? (Of course this is what you do when you want your readers to feel good, you address them personally.) Do you have mission statement for your blog? What do you mean, you don’t have a blog. Why? What does your blog want to become when it’s grown-up?

(And don’t forget the Just Posts. There is still time to enter the roundtable until tomorrow.)

Filed Under: blogging about blogging, projects

Reluctancy

April 15, 2007 by Susanne 22 Comments

Lately I have been a little reluctant to post on this blog. At first I didn’t know why. Was it wrong to stop posting in German too? Was it because my husband started reading it? Was it because I had declared this to be my main creative outlet?

I found the reason only yesterday. It has to do with blogging as my main creative outlet. Following my new principle of acknowledging what is, I had stopped pretending that I wanted nothing but write songs and honored my actual commitment by saying that right now writing words is more important to me than music. My life had reflected on this for months. The blog had been the only thing that I did with any consistency. So why should there be a problem apart from a little hurt pride because I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that I’m really a songwriter underneath all my everyday activities.

But something obviously nagged me. When I started this blog my “mission statement” (I never really had one) was to write about my life, about the struggle to attempt parenting, chores, work and making music. I wanted to inspire other mothers. I wanted to show how one can be creative, be a musician and a songwriter while having a full life on top of that.

It didn’t matter that I failed all the time, at least I tried.

But now I have stepped back from the attempt of having it all, and I’m in the process of rebuilding my life on a new foundation. People first, then one or maybe two other things a day and that’s it. For now.

While this feels exactly right I also feel like I have let everybody down. I’m not wonder woman, I can’t do it all, and I’m feeling much better for it. But somewhere deep inside of me I wondered what I have to offer to the blogosphere.

Don’t fear, I won’t quit but now you know why I have been a little reluctant lately. I think I’ll have to find a new mission statement. You know, this is my blog, I can change my mission if I want to.

How about those of you with blogs, do you have a mission? Or even without a blog, what do you think is the one thing that you can give to the world?

I’ll let you know if I know it myself.

Filed Under: blogging about blogging, creativity

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