Blog Off
Okay. I know what you've all been waiting for:
Well, it may come as no surprise to you dear readers who are aware of my notorious jealous streak that I will be boycotting "The Bloggies" (I patented that name on MY blog, not to be confused with myblahg - so don't go stealing it for Your blog) - on account of I wasn't nominated for/in ANY of the 5,000,000,000 categories.
No. Forget it now. Too late. None of your protestations matter. My heart is as a stone.
NOT that I feel too badly about it, really. MY blog is for ME. Cripes, it had better be for me - it's not like I'm making any money at it.
And truth be told, I think most bloggers blog for themselves. Not the professional ones, of course, but the amateurs. And for each other. We're a whole community of mutual admirers. Blogging for the one-upmanship of it all. And one-upmanship should not be under-estimated as a worthy pursuit of human perfection. If it weren't for one-upmanship we wouldn't have... stuff being better'n other stuff.
Now, I once freelanced a bit. Mostly for the Ottawa Citizen. I was on the OpEd pages, averaging one column/month for two years. Yup. That's twenty-four columns. Some for the Main OpEd page, some for the City OpEd page. And it was very rewarding - self-esteem-wise. Just not very rewarding financially. But I was a homemaker at the time, so it wasn't do or die, financially. It was do or die self-esteem-wise. A toe in grown-up society. A BIG toe in grown-up society. One of those things that other people can comment on, that you can have a conversation about at a party. It worked for me that way because, otherwise, well, I was a homemaker. And nothing - NOTHING! - says "Party Pooper" like "homemaker". Trust me. If you're a woman who likes to be the life of the party - DO NOT BE A HOMEMAKER! I literally remember talking to a man at a party and seeing his eyes glaze over and roll back into his head, his jaw drop down leaving his mouth hanging open, followed by flies droning in and out for hours, until finally a wily spider overheard me talking and moved in to build a web. And it had been a really exciting day for me, too. Really exciting. Really.
Anyway, I have a job now. It's a pretty lame job and I don't make very much money - (picture Elaine working for Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld and you've got my gig) - but I DO make money. I also have a fair bit of time during the day when I could be writing articles for money instead of blogging for free. But I won't do it. Why? Because it's simply not worth it. The number of times the same person can get herself on the OpEd page (and I'm talking about REAL freelancers - not freelancers on the inside track with semi-permanent spots/contracts) combined with the $200/pop salary, just isn't worth it. That, and the occasional crushing rejection (and ALL rejections are crushing and completely negate any and all previous writing successes - for all you wannabe freelancers out there) or purchase without publish and, nope, I'd rather blog.
Be the boss of my own brain, as I like to say. Now that I don't have to worry about an editor saying, "No one is going to get that. I'm taking it out."
And blogging isn't what it started out to be, either. Oh no. It's big-time now, baby. Big-time. For instance, The Bloggies are here. Sure, you can win in your pajamas, but hey - no matter who you are, you're up against some pretty stiff, er... tough competition. You must be. BECAUSE I DIDN'T EVEN GET NOMINATED!
And you've got to love the blog names. Blog names have to be the best names outside of alternative rock group names - ANYWHERE! It's not easy picking your blog name, either. SooeySays was easy because my web master picked it. Otherwise, I'd still be agonizing. (He has no respect for bloggers - none - and was toying with entering this "Testsicle" blog entry "I'm not really that vain. Although I am unbelievably good looking." for The Bloggies. It was the first SooeySays way back on 2006.03.11. Sadly, he only just heard of The Bloggies about an hour ago. And his response was merry laughter followed by, "Blogging is stupid.")
I dunno. Now I read it again (and nothing gives me more satisfaction than editing and re-editing a blog entry to perfection) I should really have posted: "I'm not really that vain, probably because I'm so unbelievably good-looking."
Grr. Damn. Now I've broken unwritten blogging rule #1 which I just made up for this entry: "Never go back and re-read entries prior to today's entry for editing porpoises." (Now see? An editor would have said, "I'm taking out 'porpoises'. No one's going to get it.")
Oh - and to be realistic, an OpEd editor wouldn't pay you $200 for a column that just said, "I'm not really that vain, probably because I'm so unbelievably good-looking." He'd want you to pad it out to 700 words. And look at it. It's good. Well, I think it's good. Feel free to use it.
Heheh - but jump in there fast before the National Post steals it.
The Bloggies. Vote. Once a day.
