Self-Aggrandizement: Blogging Archives

Sharpening the Saw?
Filed July 17, 2010 5:06 PM.

My life has been mayhem of late, and I haven't had the time to post regularly here (or to finish the Making Movies series of advice to young folks gunning for a spot in the film world, despite a couple of emails requesting more).

But, at the same time, I've certainly had spare minutes, and have similarly come across countless interesting articles and sites that I could have at least quickly posted to the slowly decaying 'salmagundi' section of my right sidebar.

So, as happens about once a year, I've been having a slight blogging crisis of confidence.

This time, however, unlike my normal self-questioning - why am I keeping this blog? - I instead focused on a new area - how am I keeping this blog?

Which is to say, as the underlying infrastructure of this site has gotten cruftier and cruftier by the year - I last redesigned self-aggrandizement.com in 2004 - is the blogging software itself creating a barrier to posting entry, and keeping me from updating as much as I otherwise might?

Tech industry friends have pointed me in a slew of directions: Tumblr was built to address just this very question. As was, at least on the link-sharing front, Twitter. Wordpress is so customizable and nimble. And even Movable Type has come eons forward since the version upon which this site is predicated.

But at the same time, I can't help but think of the proverbial "it's the poor crafstman who blames his tools." Or, similarly, but think of the many years - more than a decade - I spent looking for the perfect trumpet mouthpiece, before finally settling into the sad realization that - in the brass playing world, as in the rest of life - there is no secret beyond hard work, done consistently for years at a time, day in and day out.

So, perhaps, updating the code here, or the blogging platform is a fool's errand. A way of avoiding the underlying issue - that writing posts, and curating links, takes real work. Yet, at the same time, I can't help but think it's not just the poor crafstman who blames his tool, but also the poor craftsman who can't tell the difference between a good and a bad one.

So, fair readers, save me. How should I update the front- and back-end of this site?

Apropos
Filed March 23, 2010 12:41 AM.

I always figured I'd reached the pinnacle of something; I'd just previously been unsure of what.

[Via]

Redux
Filed November 25, 2009 9:35 AM.

Sometimes, after long breaks in blogging, I think about why I maintain this site. Do I have something to say? Does the exercise of regular writing hold some benefit itself?

Perhaps, and perhaps. But, more importantly, this site keeps me atop the Google results for 'joshua newman', 'josh newman', and a slew of other similar searches. Yes, in point of fact, this entire site is an elaborate form of SEO.

So, to that end (and, possibly, some others), back to it. In the words of the inimitable Will Rogers, even if you're on the right track, you get run over if you just sit there.

Greasing the Groove, Redux
Filed March 4, 2009 4:25 PM.

Remember when I used to write a blog?

Me too.

Sorry, things have been insane of late - though, fortunately, in a good way - as Cyan has been getting a number of initiatives up to speed.

That said, a year and a half ago, when I similarly fell off the blogging bandwagon, I posted a commitment to shitty first drafts that got me writing regularly again.

I'm reposting it below, in the hopes it will work similarly a second time through:

As Anne Lamott observed, the best cure for writer's block is a shitty first draft. Convince yourself you don't have to write something good - just that you have to write something - and it becomes far easier to get words flowing.

Which makes sense in the world of novels, where authors iterate months or years between first draft and final product. But not in blogs, where the first draft usually is the final product.

That puts the pressure back on a blogger with writer's block. And as the length of time from one post to the next mounts, the pressure worsens. Drop posting frequency from near-daily to at-best-monthly (as I have of late), and each entry need be Pulitzer-worthy to justify itself.

Yet experience dictates that I blog best as habit - post regularly, day in and day out, and, intermittently, excellence emerges.

So, for the balance of this year, it's consistency over quality. In other words, I'll be doing my best to accept shitty first drafts. And I hope you will, too.

Getting Topical
Filed August 20, 2008 11:37 PM.

When you're starting a company, the hardest part is often deciding what the company won't do. The possibilities are initially endless, yet a small company (and, really, a large company, too) can only do so many things well.

It's a bit like going to a restaurant - you can eat anything on the menu, but you can't eat everything on the menu, at least without getting sick.

Blogging follows suit. Good blogs tend to focus in on one topic, or just a handful. Yet this one, over the past eight years, has wandered haphazardly from one topic to the next.

So, finally, and long, long overdue, I've been giving some thought to what this blog should be about. Based on the emails that roll in, it seems there are four areas about which people are particularly happy to read:

Personal adventures and misadventures
Productivity and entrepreneurship
Food, dining and nutrition
Technology for non-technologists

Those four, I think, cover about 90% of the best read entries in self-aggrandizement's past.

So, as an experiment, rather than simply randomly blogging up whatever strikes my fancy, I'll be trying to cycle through those four topics. That way, whichever one you're coming to find, you'll regularly get a dose of new, relevant content.

And, hopefully, with a snarkily egotistic perspective as the thematic link across all four, you'll want to give each and every post a careful read, no matter which of the categories you like most.

After all, self-aggrandizement is already 'doubtless one of the best sites on the internet'. If I do say so myself.

Dear People of the Internet
Filed June 29, 2008 12:28 PM.

Several days ago, I wrote a short blog post entitled 'Dear People of Williamsburg'.

At the time, I was exceedingly drunk.

Nonetheless, it has since come to my attention, via email notification by roughly forty readers, that I incorrectly used 'to' instead of 'too' in that post.

And, relatedly, it has come to my attention, also by roughly forty readers' emails, that I am an idiot.

Experiment
Filed June 23, 2008 6:02 PM.

So if blogging is a habit, and I haven't blogged regularly for god knows how long mainly because I've lost the habit, then perhaps the way to start again is to just post something every day no matter what even if it sucks for thirty days. (Which is, I believe, is how long it's commonly thought to take habits to crystalize.)

Let's find out.

Disaster
Filed April 20, 2008 1:01 PM.

Some days you're the dog; other days, you're the hydrant.

Which is to say, while updating MovableType, the software that runs this blog, I somehow managed to blow the brains out of both self-aggrandizement.com and CrossFit NYC's highly trafficked blog.

Fortunately, I back up the actual entry content for both. But not the design or code, which I've spent much of today rebuilding from scratch.

So, in short, if you see anything strange on either site, please let me know.

Show Your Work
Filed March 4, 2008 6:23 PM.

My brain is shot to hell, and though I've spent the past thirty minutes trying to piece together a blog entry - something to do with emptying your inbox, and with diagnosing what causes work backlogs - I have nothing to show for it, aside from seven or eight abortive, fractional starts, collections of partial paragraphs and half-finished run-on sentences.

I'll spare you those, but as I'm having a hard day, I at least wanted to point out I sure did try, in the hopes of earning some partial credit.

Greasing the Groove
Filed November 11, 2007 5:18 PM.

As Anne Lamott observed, the best cure for writer's block is a shitty first draft. Convince yourself you don't have to write something good - just that you have to write something - and it becomes far easier to get words flowing.

Which makes sense in the world of novels, where authors iterate months or years between first draft and final product. But not in blogs, where the time from idea to post sometimes spans just minutes.

In other words, good blogging requires good first drafts. Which puts the pressure back on a blogger with writer's block. And as the length of time from one post to the next mounts, that pressure worsens. Drop posting frequency from near-daily to at-best-monthly (as I have of late), and each entry need be Pulitzer-worthy to justify itself.

Yet experience dictates that I blog best as habit - post regularly, day in and day out, and intermittently, excellence emerges.

So, for the balance of this year, it's consistency over quality. In other words, I'll be doing my best to accept shitty first drafts. And I hope you will, too.

Reminiscence
Filed November 4, 2007 10:50 AM.

Hey, remember when I had a blog?

Me too.

Reinstated
Filed July 30, 2007 6:18 PM.

"I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been."
- Billie Holiday

Cliche-dar
Filed March 14, 2007 6:13 PM.

And, now regretting my overuse of the formulation of that last post, other people whom this site has suggested 'look out':

Harvey Weinstein.
Picasso.
Bob Villa.
Santa Claus.
Movie people.
Playgirl.
Anyone who pisses me off.

Thanks for the Tip
Filed January 9, 2007 12:25 PM.

Gawker linked to my recent post on holiday tipping, with the helpful comment:

Furthermore, you live in a building with six fucking doormen. You SHOULD tip those guys for keeping out the crazies. It's not like you can't afford it. Asshole.

To which I say, since when is the editorial staff of Gawker reading my blog?

Practice
Filed December 8, 2006 2:03 PM.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."
- Aristotle

Friends who read this site often ask: "what the hell is wrong with you?"

Or, more specifically, "why would you possibly want to post random details about yourself online?"

And, indeed, that's a question I ocassionally ask myself as well. But, in stacking up the few reasons to self-aggrandize against the many sensible reasons to not, I inevitably remember that this site, more than anything else, is meant to shame me into regular writing.

Knowing that, somewhere out there in the ether, several thousands of you are inexplicably checking self-aggrandizement every day, I feel compelled to sit down and write something. Which, as every writing teacher I've ever had loved to remind, is more than half the battle, the writerly part of your brain, like a muscle, strengthening with exercise or atrophying from disuse.

So, as we careen towards January 1st, and I begin my standard obsessive process of taking stock of the year past and charting the one ahead, I've been considering the easily undervalued importance of doing things - like writing for this site - regularly, the power of habits in chipping away, day in and day out, at the things I most want out of life.

Still, I realize that some habits are more easily stuck to than others. Which leaves me glad that, if nothing else, I can probably retain at least one lauded by the Great Emancipator himself: getting rip-roaring drunk.

"I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice."
- Abraham Lincoln

Let us drink to that. And let us do so, like clockwork, each and every day.

Good Advice
Filed October 23, 2006 11:24 PM.

From the New Yorker, courtesy of Jess

CringeyWYG
Filed October 12, 2006 11:10 AM.

While I've read at Cringe in the past, next week I'm returning for a special quasi-Cringe roadshow, being held here in Manhattan (rather than out in Brooklyn, Manhattan's waiting room), in conjunction with the WYSIWYG reading series.

From the producer:

The WYSIWYG Talent Show, NYC's first and only all-blogger reading and performance series, teams up with the diary-readin', poetry-spoutin', full-on adolescent angst of Brooklyn's Cringe reading series for the first time ever at 8 p.m. on October 18, 2006 with CringeyWYG!

Every month The WYSIWYG TALENT SHOW brings you readings and performances from some of the blogosphere's best and funniest writers, musicians, comedians and performance artists. And every month Cringe brings readings of teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence. Together, they fight crime! Okay, not really, but it WILL be funny.

The WYSIWYG Talent Show's "CringeyWYG" performs Wednesday, October 18 at Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston). Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 at the door. For more information visit wysiwygtalentshow.org, queserasera.org/cringe.html, www.bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505.

With performances by:

* Sarah Brown
* Lindsay Robertson
* Marc Balgavy
* Joshua Newman
* Jason Boog
* Chris Hampton

About the performers:

Sarah Brown is the host of the Cringe Reading Series, the editor of the upcoming Cringe book, the executive co-producer of the upcoming Cringe television show, and the 1933 Oklahoma State Ladies' Trickshoot Champion. She is equal parts eight-year-old girl, 16-year-old boy, and 70-year-old man, so in the movie of her life she will be played by Liza Minelli. You can find her online at queserasera.org.

Lindsay Robertson writes a blog called lindsayism.com. She's written for GQ, MTV, ComedyCentral.com and Jane, among others. Until she discovered comedy in her late teens, she was planning to be the next Sylvia Plath.

During his final year of college, Marc Balgavy (http://balgavy.com/blog) created business cards for himself. Beyond listing his likes (Hal Hartley and graham crackers) and dislikes (dirty dishes and word searches), they listed his parents' phone number. The cards also featured a black and white photo of him wearing a bleached blonde goatee. In the intervening years he's realized those cards were the turning point where "filled with potential" met "easily distracted by go-nowhere projects."

Though it was for other, equally dorky, reasons that Forbes called him "a veritable Doogie Howser," Joshua Newman has been keeping a computer diary since the age of ten. He currently posts his entries online at www.self-aggrandizement.com, and spends the rest of his day running indie film studio Cyan Pictures and drinking heavily.

After spending two years on top of a mountain in Peace Corps Guatemala, Jason Boog chased the dream of every skinny Midwestern writer boy with glasses: to starve to death in New York City. He completed the graduate journalism program at NYU in 2004, and now works as a staff writer at the Institute for Judicial Studies (judicialreports.com). He writes the blog The Publishing Spot (thepublishingspot.com).

WYSIWYG creator and curator Chris Hampton has been blogging at Uffish Thoughts (uffish.com) since blogging wasn't cool. By day, she works at a Big Gay Nonprofit and in her spare time she knits, pimps WYSIWYG at every possible opportunity, and obsesses over Project Runway and punctuation. She grew up in Arkansas but has since fully recovered.

About WYSIWYG:
"Urban Storytelling for the Internet Age" â€“ Now in its third year, the WYSIWYG Talent Show is a monthly series of readings and performances by bloggers living in or visiting NYC. Every month WYSIWYG showcases a variety of themed evenings featuring topics on everything from bad bosses and drugs to extreme gayness and summer camp. Each installment is an evening of funny and touching stories, songs, and performances from some of the best writers and most interesting personalities on the Web. More information can be found at wysiwygtalentshow.org.

About Cringe:
Cringe is a monthly reading series hosted by Sarah Brown at Freddy's Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn. On the first Wednesday of each month, brave souls come forward and read aloud from their teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence. It's better and cheaper than therapy. More information can be found at
queserasera.org/cringe.html.

5-7-5
Filed January 3, 2006 10:01 PM.

Quick post to point out
the new side-blog addition:
a daily haiku

Back in the Saddle
Filed September 18, 2005 7:39 PM.

This is a travesty. Less than ten posts in two months?

How hard is it to write this crap? I'll tell you how hard: not very. Not very at all.

But, somehow, I still managed to fall completely out of the blogging habit. Now, the good old days, when this site was a regularly updated compendium of smarm and self-obsession in the City, are just distant memories.

For the past week or two, I was ready to admit defeat, to put this site out to pasture.

But then, I re-read some of the archives, and it reminded me, by God, I am a fucking genius.

So, I'm back. With a vengeance. To quote the post that kick-started me out of my last serious blogging breakdown, three years back:

"Yes, boys and girls, like a veritable phoenix rising from its digital ashes, the daily dose of vitriol returns.

"Sorry mom, but it's cheaper than therapy."

Cheap Trick
Filed June 27, 2005 11:02 AM.

You see what I'm doing here? I'm making it seem like I'm jumping whole-hog back into self-aggrandizing by putting up a lot of little postings, which will clutter the front page and at least look vaguely like content until you read them and figure out, holy crap, he's just writing long, long run-on sentences without an actual point which is like the cheapest blogging trick in the entire world.

Reconsidered
Filed June 27, 2005 11:01 AM.

Maybe this whole shaving thing will make my writing worse, because now what am I going to do instead of thoughtfully stroking my beard as I try and compose sentences and paragraphs?

Drastic Measures
Filed June 27, 2005 10:57 AM.

I am alive.
The completely empty front page was not the first sign of impending apocalypse.
It was, however, a sign that I've completely fallen off the blogging wagon.
So, to remedy that, to kick myself back into routine writing, I shaved off my beard this morning.
I'm not sure how that's going to help either, but I figure, at this point, it probably can't make my blogging schedule any worse.

Ch-ch-changes
Filed March 16, 2005 4:30 PM.

As threatened, I'm pulling together category pages, and generally dealing with the unwieldy mess the back end of this site has become over the years.

I'm also playing around with a new look, mainly because I no longer wanted to look at my own site's prior design. Plus, 'everything lower case' is so 2004.

categorically
Filed March 10, 2005 11:46 AM.

Five or six years ago, the venture fund I was running invested in a company that made content management software. In an early pitch, the execs laid out a number of business-specific uses for their software. And, they said, there was even a consumer application: people could use it to keep what was called a 'weblog'.

I was unimpressed. A weblog? Apparently, they were sites where people wrote inane posts about their daily lives, about the weird things that interested them, then threw it all online in a chronological pile, hoping that people would read along.

It was the stupidest idea I'd heard in a while, I said. And I meant it.

But, at a subsequent board meeting, I agreed to give the whole 'blogging' thing a quick try, just to get a better feel for the software's interface. I'd do it for a month or two, I figured, then get back to the more important stuff in my life.

At the end of the two months, however, when I stopped posting, I started getting angry emails. People I'd never even met had apparently been reading my site at work, and had quickly developed procrastinatory addictions. "Keep writing!" one reader urged me. "Otherwise, I'll have to actually start doing work."

So, despite my initial skepticism, I kept blogging. Even once the company that dragged me into it evolved away from consumer-facing software, I downloaded an early version of Movable Type, and kept writing away.

Since then, though, I've tended to have annual crises of confidence. I've looked at this habit that I somehow fell into backwards, and questioned why I do it. And, usually, I've claimed I would stop blogging, to transition the site towards something more feature-article driven, something that would encourage me to actually edit before posting, something that would allow me to focus in on topics that I'd like to write about, but that don't seem to flow naturally when I'm simply banging out, day by day, whatever happens to be on my mind.

Sadly, it never lasts. Mainly because, whatever else it does for me, this site is the free equivalent of the therapist's couch. Oddly enough, there's something remarkably psychologically soothing about hashing through the things I'm thinking, knowing that people are listening, even if most of them are people I'm never likely to actually meet.

So, this year, rather than threaten wholesale redesign, major change or ground-up rethinking, after spending a few hours last night staring at the ceiling, I'm sailing through this year's 'what the hell am I doing this for, and how can I do it better?' breakdown with only a minor change: I'm going to start categorizing posts.

Yes, I know, that doesn't seem like much. But, in doing so, I'm hoping it will convince me to pay more attention to those categories I tend to neglect, will cause the volumes of writing to balance out over the different facets of my life.

I'm also hoping that, by lumping the better posts in each category together, it will encourage me to write longer series over time, knowing that people will still be able to easily find earlier, related posts. To that end, for example, I'm thinking of slowly posting up my half-written book on entrepreneurship, a chunk at a time. Certainly, it would do much more good if people read it than if it continues languishing on my hard disk.

So, in short, here's my current list of what I think I've written about in the past, and what I'd like to keep writing about going forward:

Cooking
Culture Consumption (music, book and movie reviews)
Dating
Entrepreneurship
Filmmaking
Fitness
Interviews
Judaism
New York Life
Photography
Productivity
Quotes
Restaurant Reviews
Science & Technology
Style
Toys & Gadgets
Travel
Trumpet
Writing

The list may evolve slightly as I move forward, but I think it's a fairly broad base. Expect to see category tags on posts and categorical index pages cropping up over the course of the month.

And, as ever, if you have thoughts, feel free to mail 'em in.

antiphon
Filed February 10, 2005 9:00 AM.

"He has no enemy, you say; my friend your boast is poor. He who hath mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure must have made foes. If he has none, small is the work that he has done."
- Alexander Anton von Auersperg

When we were first launching Cyan, one of the things we discussed constantly was how we should judge our work. By financial success? By popular response? By critical reviews?

And, in those discussions, we all unanimously agreed that, at least on the reviews front, we'd be wildly happier with films that polarize critics - films that get some really great reviews and some really bad reviews - than with ones that garner a widespread 'meh' for their inoffensive mediocrity.

With I Love Your Work, we pretty much got what we wished for. The reviews coming out of Toronto, and in the international release of the film, have been wildly split, with reviewers either loving or hating the film, and with very little in between.

At first, glad as we were to have made something that garnered a strong response, bolstered by the enthusiasm of the positive pieces, at some level, those bad reviews really hurt.

But, with a bit of time, we started to feel okay about them. And then, with more time, better than okay. We started to relish the bad as much as the good. Kurt Vonnegut wrote that "a creative act is not considered: it's instinctual. It is to be responded to, reacted against." Those strong reactions, the good and the bad, were the best positive feedback we could get. In making a film, we're putting a collaborative creative effort out into the world. People responding to it, reacting against it, means that we're doing at least something right.

But if it only took me a few months to become zen to criticism at work, I must admit it's taken me much longer to apply that thinking in the rest of my life. I don't mean at the small, day-to-day level, where I've long appreciated people pointing out how I could do things better. Rather, I mean it at the level of me as a whole.

A few times a month, someone emails in, or posts about me on their (or in the comments of someone else's) site, to say that I'm a 100%, total douche-bag. And, irrational as it may be, their missives initially really piss me off.

In the past, I've let them piss me off for a surprisingly long time. A really cutting one could ruin my day. But, increasingly, like with bad film reviews, after the initial shock wears off, I've started to revel in them. It's not just with Cyan's films, but with my life as a whole, that I'm shooting for far past inoffensive mediocrity. And since the varied group of friends I regularly see, by definition, are mainly a source of 'good reviews', it's the occasional 'bad review' that confirms I'm pushing the envelope just enough.

Tellingly, I almost never receive hate mail from people I've actually wronged. Instead, I get it from people who seem deeply offended by the fact that I'm trying, day by day, to piece together the life I really want to be living.

Hatred, as George Bernard Shaw pointed out, is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. Bring it on.

thinking of you
Filed January 23, 2005 4:12 PM.

Read Strunk & White, Poynter or Zinsser, and you'll emerge with at least one common tip for improving your writing: know your audience.

Which, for most documents, is undoubtedly good advice. Penning a Sunday Style article (seriously, Barbara, it's almost finished), a business proposal or a birthday card, it helps immeasurably to keep the eventual reader firmly in mind.

With this blog, however, audience-focused writing is a much harder trick to pull off. Not solely because I have absolutely no idea who most of the thousand or two people who float through this site daily are, but also because the groups of people who I do know about are all looking for such divergent things.

Based on the posts that get linked on other blogs, or del.iciou.us bookmarked, it's pretty clear s-a's readership is composed of several, fairly distinct groups. There are the 43Folders-ites, thrilled by any mention of productivity hacks and Getting Things Done; there are the startup wonks, looking for entrepreneurial insights and tech business ruminations; there are the film folks, hoping to pitch Cyan (and now Long Tail) and looking first to unlock the secret that will get them cast or hired, or launch their screenplay into production; and then there are the large number of generalist voyeurs, the people hoping to live a bit of the disastrous New York dating life through my vicarious misadventures.

Since I know no single thing I write could make them all happy, I essentially don't even try. I don't balance out the flow of postings to make sure I cater regularly to each group, or even neatly section off one kind of writing from another. Instead, as they do in my brain, the thoughts all simply jumble up on the front page, intermixed, sometimes even within a single post.

But while I'm able to block from my mind (wisely or not) the varying groups of readers, I occasionally find myself writing to one single reader. I write, in short, knowing that I'm being blog-stalked by a potential date.

In my prior post, I said that I don't seem to have a type, a regular pattern that emerges from my dating past. Which, in fact, is only partially true. When I last tallied my kissing count, I re-discovered something that I've long, at least subconsciously, known: I tend to like writers, especially those that self-reflect mercilessly, that pour their inner life onto paper (or screen). Which makes me, in short, remarkably good at developing crushes on fellow bloggers.

I say this all to preface admission of my own potential-date blog-stalking. In the world of business, I tend to obsessively research investors, clients and hires. Which has carried over to my personal life, where, especially in the case of other bloggers, I tend to follow along with new postings, to pore over bits of the archive, looking less for the what and more for the underlying why.

And, projecting perhaps, I tend to imagine that potential dates are doing the same thing. The contents of my archives are fairly immutable. But new postings - over that I have some control. So I tend to second guess my own ideas, question topics on which I might typically hold forth. I look at potential posts and wonder how they make me sound. Too dorky? Too neurotic? Too excited about the companies I'm trying to build?

Fortunately, I rarely pause long, as, in fact, I'm at least as dorky and neurotic and excited as my writing might imply. That's just who I am. And while trying to hide that, even in the off chance that I could pull it off, might help me score a first, or even third, date, it certainly wouldn't bring me to the the thiry-first or seventy-third.

Frankly, that's a whole lot of work for a rather brief-lived payoff. So much of New York dating - the posing, the game-playing - it only works for that brief stretch when you have the interest and energy to put in the effort. Which is why, even during those stretches that I'm sure (rightly or wrongly) someone I'd really love to impress is reading along, I fall back on the same strategy for writing as I've gradually come to for real-world dates: stop trying so damn hard, stick to the truth, and hope for the best.

While, short-term, it's probably not the most effective strategy (either for keeping readers or for getting laid), in the long run, it's the only hope I've got.

placeholder
Filed December 23, 2004 7:10 PM.

The thing with blogging is, it's a habit. And, like any habit, once you get out, it's hard to get back in.

I say that in light of my light posting this month - four entries in twenty-three days being more than a bit off the daily schedule towards which I shoot. Sure, I could make excuses, blaming moving, furnishing, hosting my visiting brother, starting Long Tail, or any number of other time sinks. But, in truth, the ever-increasing span of non-blogging is simply the effects of return-post dread: with each passing day, I'm increasingly convinced that, whatever I write as my first entry after the long stretch of nothing had better be damn good, had better somehow make up for all the slacking off.

Hence this post, which, obviously, isn't a damn good one, but rather an attempt to wipe the fear-of-return-post-quality slate clean. After all, whatever I write next, it pretty much has to be an improvement.

no comment
Filed November 3, 2004 6:00 PM.

As comment spam has been raging out of control, and as, of the slightly less than three thousand unique visitors over the past week, exactly seven have actually commented, I'm heading back (at least temporarily) to the years of commentlessness that characterized this site.

If you don't like it, leave a comment.

instant expert
Filed August 17, 2004 7:14 AM.

As with most web users, when I set out to research something, Google is my inevitable first stop. As a result, that site holds great power in designating expertise. Show up as a top result for a search string, and it's assumed that you know something about the topic that led the searcher to your site.

As I've previously written, that's not always the best assumption. While I continue to pick up a dozen hits a day on 'urinal etiquette', a topic I have written about in depth, I also draw equal numbers from searches like 'fat naked guys' and 'lesbian self-photography', topics that, while obviously enthralling, fall a bit further outside my area of expertise.

Apparently, even people who should know much better are using Google in this way. A Newsweek editor, for example, emailed a couple of months back while researching an article on specialty teas. And while the extent of my contribution to that area of knowledge is essentially limited to occasionally talking shit about Starbucks' decision to sell sub-par Tazo, I still managed to get my father quoted in her article as a result.

I've been particularly amused, however, by the recent spate of visitors arriving at this site by searching for the string 'asdjf'. I mean, that's not even a word - it's what you get when you smash your hand down nonsensically on the center row of a keyboard. Still, each day I get thoughtful, dorky questions like:

"I would like to know what words that appear to be just a random sequence of letters, usually containing elements of the set {a, s, d, f, h, j, i} mean. Sometimes the "words" are separated by semi-colons. Examples are "asdjf," "asf," "asdfkl" and "sldfjasjkdf." Teenagers and young adults use them on the internet and chat rooms, many times in conjunction with "grrrr" (which I presume to be an expression of anger.)"

To which I can only say: aas;lkdfj alj;fsdk kljalfsd a;sldkfjads;fkl.

blog zen
Filed May 19, 2004 9:27 AM.

"I just never knew that so much went into organizing a wallet. I would assume that an afternoon with a three year old would produce more material."
- Senora Juego, in an astute comment on yesterday's post.

***

I'll be the first to admit that, when I write nearly a thousand words about wallet maintenance, it's not because I'm wildly passionate about the subject. Instead, it's what happens when, sitting down at the computer, I realize I have absolutely nothing to say.

***

Writers block is a fact of writing. Anyone who writes regularly, who routinely starts new pieces from scratch, has - at least on occasion - faced the terrifying nothingness of a white screen or blank piece of paper.

Novelists bitch and moan about it, drink themselves to death as a result. Working journalists, conversely, tend to simply slog their way through, quality be damned; a deadline's coming, they ain't gettin' paid unless they turn in two thousand words, and so they might as well just put something onto paper.

And, in that sense, we webloggers are nearly journalists. The deadlines may be internal, driven by a sense of obligation to regular posting. But they weigh down none the less. The blank screen looms, and we simply write the first thing that pops into our heads. Quality be damned.

***

Often, when I talk to people who've just taken up blogging, they'll tell me that they don't intend to blog for long. They'll simply go until they've told all the stories they've, for years, wanted to tell. And then they'll quit.

Invariably, this never happens. Through the process of blogging, they come to realize that, in our small daily adventures, the minute facets of our lives, there are literally thousands upon thousands of stories and speculations to tell and share. We could never possibly run out.

And yet, day by day, it's often difficult to see those facets and adventures. They're too small to us, too constant, too much a part of life.

***

There is an old Koan about a young monk who, seeking enlightenment, asks Master Dae-Ju to tell him the path to Zen. Dae-Ju replies, “Zen is very easy. When hungry, eat; when tired, sleep.”

We spend all of our lives doing things without really doing them. We go through the motions. We walk through our parts. But are we really present?

If this is the path to Zen, it's also the path to blogging well. To find material, we needn't change what we do, merely the way we do it. Fully experience each day, and surely in each lies a story worth telling.

Of course, like any truth, it's easier advice to mouth than to follow. Unlike Zen, though, blogging provides constant feedback in that pursuit, a daily test of how well we've stuck to the course of fully living. Do I have a story to tell? And, if not, is it really because nothing happened to me in the past twenty-four hours? Or is it because so much happened that I somehow missed it all, even as I marked my way through?

***

Keeping a weblog, then, is easy. When inspired, write; when finished, stop. Live through today. Return tomorrow. You'll doubtless be inspired to write again.

the lineup, amended
Filed May 14, 2004 4:26 PM.

With the web writing anthology cranking full speed ahead, I thought I'd post the final list of included sites, as it features a handful not mentioned in the prior list:

Very exciting stuff.

pardon the dust
Filed May 6, 2004 5:44 PM.

As the old version of s-a was so 2002, I'm switching the site over to this new look. I don't have much (read 'any') free time in my schedule at the moment, so the site likely won't be switched over completely until this weekend; sorry for any technical problems between now and then.

the lineup
Filed March 31, 2004 4:15 PM.

For those curious, the list of authors for Cyan Publishing's upcoming Best Web Writing anthology:

I'm still talking with three other writers, who I hope to rope in by the end of the week; that should bring the total count up to 30. (A brief side note: there are many, many other great writers online, many of whom I read regularly. To get to these thirty, we started with a list of nearly 100 sites, which was narrowed down by the book's editorial panel. I really, totally, sincerely and completely hope nobody is offended by their name not appearing here; any such authors should simply write it off as my and the panel's inability to recognize true genius even when it's staring us in the face.)

At this point, I'm collecting a list of solid posts from each author, which the ed. panel will be narrowing down to the final assortment of pieces. So, if you read any of these sites regularly and care to recommend anything they've written that's particularly stellar, I'd greatly appreciate your shooting me an email.

re-revelation
Filed January 13, 2004 6:49 PM.

Every time I come back to blogging, I remember what a remarkably, painfully slow writer I am.

crawling back
Filed January 10, 2004 1:44 PM.

I know, I know. I supposedly quit this weblog thing for good, cold turkey, just two months back. But, I swear to god, weblogging is more addictive than crack. Plus, while I still am aiming to write the longer sort of articles that precipitated the move away from blogging, I realized quickly that I often had short tidbits to share that didn't really justify pages of their own. Hence this iteration of the site, which blends a weblog on the front page with hierarchically organized long-form content throughout the rest of the site.

And, yes, quitting and un-quitting is nothing unusual in the weblog world. (Welcome back HJ!) Hell, I've done it at least yearly myself since logging my first post nearly five years back. So, in celebration of my utter predictability, I close with this comeback quote from one of my un-quits two years back: "Yes, boys and girls, like a veritable phoenix rising from its digital ashes, the daily dose of vitriol returns. Sorry mom, but it's cheaper than therapy."

at least i'm consistent
Filed September 23, 2003 10:40 AM.

Midway through pulling together a post about the differences between how men and women eat boxed chocolates, it suddenly occurred to me: Perhaps I've written about this before.

Apparently I have.

god bless the internet
Filed August 5, 2003 5:46 PM.

Where else could two guys' dorky emails spur a maelstrom of discussion culminating in women lining up to make out with them both?

unrest upon the internetshire
Filed August 4, 2003 3:18 PM.

Part the First, wherein trouble is instigated.

Ms. Hiboux adjudicates the "blog-boys of summer SMACKDOWN!"

Part the Second, wherein a challenge is lain.

Mr. Aplenty-
As cemented by Krissa's latest posting, I'm afraid I have no choice but to officially declare, between the two of us, an Unending, To-the-Death Digital Rivalry of Great Hatred and Much Dislike.

Sadly, several of our mutual digital acquaintances have actually suggested that we would get along dangerously well in real life, and I must admit to regularly reading and immensely enjoying your site.

None the less, the Code of Internet Chivalry (hereby created by its very invocation) dictates that I not let such petty matters sway me from the necessary Great Hatred (and certainly not from the Much Dislike) required by our mutual positions.

Consider yourself thusly informed,

j

Part the Third, wherein the challenge is accepted.

Mr. Aggrandizement,
I cannot tell you how much pleasure this email gives me. It indicates that you feel the need to follow a code of ethics, that you have a sense of honor and human decency. This, of course, means that you are suffused with weakness. As soon as I saw Krissa's namby pamby "tie vote," I immediately hired the long out-of-work cast of "Different Strokes" to hunt you down in Hell's Kitchen and kill you. I did not throw down a gauntlet or provide warning of any sort, as you did below.

The fact that I also enjoy your site (despite its apalling [sic] lack of comment enablement) is, I believe, completely beside the point. The only thing that matters to me is victory.

May the worst man win.

Best regards,
Greg

To be continued?

Sharpening the Saw? Filed July 17, 2010 5:06 PM.

Apropos Filed March 23, 2010 12:41 AM.

Redux Filed November 25, 2009 9:35 AM.

Greasing the Groove, Redux Filed March 4, 2009 4:25 PM.

Getting Topical Filed August 20, 2008 11:37 PM.

Dear People of the Internet Filed June 29, 2008 12:28 PM.

Experiment Filed June 23, 2008 6:02 PM.

Disaster Filed April 20, 2008 1:01 PM.

Show Your Work Filed March 4, 2008 6:23 PM.

Greasing the Groove Filed November 11, 2007 5:18 PM.

Reminiscence Filed November 4, 2007 10:50 AM.

Reinstated Filed July 30, 2007 6:18 PM.

Cliche-dar Filed March 14, 2007 6:13 PM.

Thanks for the Tip Filed January 9, 2007 12:25 PM.

Practice Filed December 8, 2006 2:03 PM.

Good Advice Filed October 23, 2006 11:24 PM.

CringeyWYG Filed October 12, 2006 11:10 AM.

5-7-5 Filed January 3, 2006 10:01 PM.

Back in the Saddle Filed September 18, 2005 7:39 PM.

Cheap Trick Filed June 27, 2005 11:02 AM.

Reconsidered Filed June 27, 2005 11:01 AM.

Drastic Measures Filed June 27, 2005 10:57 AM.

Ch-ch-changes Filed March 16, 2005 4:30 PM.

categorically Filed March 10, 2005 11:46 AM.

antiphon Filed February 10, 2005 9:00 AM.

thinking of you Filed January 23, 2005 4:12 PM.

placeholder Filed December 23, 2004 7:10 PM.

no comment Filed November 3, 2004 6:00 PM.

instant expert Filed August 17, 2004 7:14 AM.

blog zen Filed May 19, 2004 9:27 AM.

the lineup, amended Filed May 14, 2004 4:26 PM.

pardon the dust Filed May 6, 2004 5:44 PM.

the lineup Filed March 31, 2004 4:15 PM.

re-revelation Filed January 13, 2004 6:49 PM.

crawling back Filed January 10, 2004 1:44 PM.

at least i'm consistent Filed September 23, 2003 10:40 AM.

god bless the internet Filed August 5, 2003 5:46 PM.

unrest upon the internetshire Filed August 4, 2003 3:18 PM.