Tag Archives: blogging

Radio Silence; a meta post on blogging and trolls

This blogging gig is a weird business. Part journaling, part therapy, part diary, part writing practice, part connection-seeking, part activism, and part paid-article proving ground. Granted, I’ve deliberately defined the scope of this blog as quite broad, a(n over)reaction to my original hyper-focus that declared anything not directly relating to both parenting and feminism as “off topic” (not that that ever stopped me from posting it, mind you). But the blogging beast itself is terribly, inherently strange as well, simultaneously intimate and distanced; a self-conscious self-performance, no matter how raw, how naked we get.

And then there are trolls. Some are so ridiculous they’re amusing (even as their barbs also sting). Some are consciously, deliberately cruel. Some come to argue based on an utter disagreement with the fundamental principles of this space, leaving me to wonder why they bother (and to believe it’s that they enjoy annoying me). Some seem as well-intentioned and sincere as is possible whilst declaring me a child abuser, (reverse) racist, horrible parent, delusional fatty, all-around crazy person, or wrong on every possible point.

I don’t get as many trolls as some others do, I know. I don’t (as far as I know — and in this case, ignorance is bliss; please leave me mine even if it is false) have sites dedicated to my take down or downfall. I’ve yet to receive death threats (declarations that the world/my family/my child would better off with me dead, yes). I’ve been pronounced unfuckable, but not yet declared rapeable.

(How sad is it that these are my standards for “the trolls aren’t that bad”?)

Mostly, trolls give me a chance to vent and laugh and seek solace from my friends (both virtual and otherwise). Or, to reaffirm my commitment to truth-telling and activism. But sometimes the sheer volume, the unfiltered vitriol, gives me pause, and causes me to question my decisions.

Not in what I do, mind you. But what I say. What I write. What I share. How I shape this performance-of-self.

For it is shaped, and it is performed; never doubt that. I can speak only truths, and give the impression that I know exactly what I am doing, an expert to (depending on your bias) revere or revile — or that I am clueless, hopeless, useless, and unredeemable. I wouldn’t have to lie to tell either story (except by omission). I mostly try to perform complexity, and portray both (and thus neither), partly because of philosophy and beliefs about my audience, but mostly — I would have you believe, would have myself believe — because it is the most honest. But it is, regardless, performance.

And a self-conscious, self-aware one. Although I know better than to attempt a schedule, I nevertheless keep a sort of running tally, and recent history weighs on what I write next: have I addressed race recently? trans issues? parenting failures? child rights? general sexism? body shame and body love? Have I done a ranty post? A funny one? A naked one? A nuanced one? What do the last month’s posts say about me? Have I created this dance in the shape I want?

And then come trolls. And this beautiful-painful-fragile-strong thing I have created, am creating, is egged, is graffitied, is declared ugly, is attacked, is belittled. Is used against me. And I wonder not if I’m wrong, not if I’m as awful as they say (though sometimes, at three am or three in the afternoon…), but if it’s worth it. If it’s worth flinching when I hear the new-email ding, worth the anxiety spike when I see “New comment pending”, worth the reluctance to open my Twitter feed. Worth bringing this psychic shit into my home, around my child, hurting me, harming us both.

So far, sometimes after time away to lick my wounds and wonder, I’ve said yes. So far the emails that thank me for my honesty outweigh the comments that call me ugly, and uglier names. So far the therapy of blogging gives me more than the therapy I need because of blogging costs me. So far the minds changed are worth the attacks on my mental status. So far the work I do is more nourishing than the trolls are draining.

I don’t know that it will always be so.

23 Comments | Posted on 19 July 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy | Tags: , , ,
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RMB in the media

In addition to working on AP Our Way, I’m showing up in a fair number of non-digital places these days:

So yeah.

Check ‘em out if you’re able.

6 Comments | Posted on 3 June 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Life, the Universe, and Everything | Tags: , , , , ,
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5 steps to creating a blog post and/or nervous breakdown, or, why I don’t get more work done

For Holly, who suggested the topic “All the things you can do to avoid going to bed. ;) ” This is not that. But I was inspired.

Step One: Send Child to Bed.

This is a 2-57 step process usually involving food, one dozen hugs minimum — all of which must be proceeded by “Look at this run! Are you watching? OK, watch this run!” followed by being tackled, aka hugged — more food, watching the child get naked, sending him off to bed with his father, sending him back to bed with his father, sending him back to bed again this time with a water bottle which must be filled up because it was two whole millimeters below completely full, and approximately one thousand exchanges of “good night! sleep well! you too! YOU TOO! MAMA SAY YOU TOO! Good night! Work well! Good night!” after which any thoughts of ideas for writing topics have been replaced by fantasies of what getting really drunk must be like1.

Step Two: Check Twitter and Attempt to Write

Check @ messages. Wonder why no one has @ messaged me, or, get overwhelmed by number of @ messages and ignore. Open New Post file. Send out test balloon tweet. Write 1-3 sentences on topic of choice; decide I need more inspiration, go read links on Twitter. Retweet most interesting articles that happen to have been tweeted within past half hour. Think “Crap I need to go read that article by Summer Minor I Fav’d last month.” Don’t. Return to post; change dash to semicolon. Comment on people’s humorous parenting/bad day/new baby/rant of the hour/outrage of the day/cause of the week tweets. Return to new post only to be distracted by incoming @ messages. Engage in witty exchange with 1-20 people. Think “Hah! My brother’s not the only one in the family who can make people laugh.” Squash ominous feeling that all tweets will seem 1/100th as funny in daylight. Click over to WordPress, try to remember topic of 1-3 sentences and why it seemed like a good idea. Become overwhelmed. Realize three hours have passed, child will be waking up in seven hours and all creativity has been discharged in medium that will not remember said wit in two hours, much less next month. Reconsider addiction obsession relationship with Twitter. Proclaim lack of productivity, declare good night. On Twitter.

Step Three: Close the Computer

The length of this step is directly proportional to how overtired I am, and also to certain-persons-who-will-remain-nameless2‘s proximity to a chat program, and can take anywhere between ten minutes and two hours.

Step Four: Prepare for Bed

Take pills, tidy up3, check pets, turn off lights, take shower, have post idea and fully formed paragraphs take hold of my brain while rinsing hair, curse, proceed to step 5a or 5b.

Step Five A: Go to bed

Swear that this time post idea will remain in brain overnight, read fanfic on the iPhone to get words to stop cascading, fall asleep, forget topic much less gorgeous turn of phrase by morning. With luck, also forget said loss of words and thoughts.4

Step Five B: Write

Concede that topic and/or words and/or need for publishing post is, tonight, more urgent than sleep, spend one hour writing, two hours editing and adding links, [one hour back on Twitter gathering encouragement to finish and/or publish], bite nails, hit post, Tweet link, check Facebook and Twitter for reactions, reload Facebook and Twitter, check bit.ly stats for number of clicks, check WordPress for new comments, wonder why no one is commenting, reload Facebook and Twitter again, curse universe for making me post when no one is awake, check bit.ly stats, comment queue, Facebook, and Twitter one more time (and one more time again), close computer, turn off lights (again), stumble to bed, calculate sleep debt, and swear unto all the gods, goddesseses, demons, sprites, fae, and pink fluffy unicorns5 that next time I really, truly, really will actually start writing when I first sit down.

  1. I don’t drink… alcohol, as a rule, and never have. I’ve been drunk once in my life, and The Man still hasn’t forgiven me for it being at a time when he wasn’t there to witness. ↩
  2. Kareena. ↩
  3. This step optional. ↩
  4. I am not lucky. ↩
  5. Dancing on rainbows and otherwise. ↩
13 Comments | Posted on 17 February 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Life, the Universe, and Everything, Parenting | Tags: , , ,
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Arwyn’s Rules for Blogging

Every couple weeks or so I run across another list of 5 or 10 or 40 Rules of Blogging. Sometimes they’re called Blogging Tips, sometimes Tricks to Make You a Better Blogger, or, my favorite, Laws of Not Sucking at Blogging. But they’re always numbered, bulleted lists, and I always break at least half of the rules, and go away grumpy and more cynical than ever. The obvious solution? Make my own!

  1. Write long, intricate posts. Never write less than 500 words; see if you can go for 1000, even 1500 or 2000 or more. Make as many points as you want to; don’t split a tangent off into another post if you can possibly make it fit into this one.
  2. Make your sentences as long as possible; learn to love the semicolon. Let at least one paragraph per post start with the most round-about intro sentence you can think of: let this sentence be at least thirty words long. Fifty is better.
  3. Avoid numbered lists and bullet points like last year’s turkey leftovers. Better yet, like they’re medium-rare day-old buffet burgers — and you’re a raw-foods vegan.
  4. Unless you’re being paid to sell something, pretend the letters SEO stand for Search Every Orifice, and immediately click away from any blog or post with that in its title.
  5. Demand more from your readers. Expect them to click and read the links you leave explaining complex concepts. Require them to use their minds to engage with your topic; if you must set analytics goals, make it be that they spend a minimum of four minutes per post, and that they then immediately click away to learn more.
  6. If you haven’t bothered to learn its versus it’s, your versus you’re, or exactly what to do with that semicolon I just cajoled you to use, by all means, spend half an hour reading about grammar and do better. But if the word “grammar” strikes fear in your heart, if you’ve read the rules a hundred times and still don’t get it, if your brain doesn’t work in a way that accords with highfalutin’ rules of grammar, if it’s hard enough to sit up and type at all when your head’s in a daze from the pain: fuck ‘em. Write anyway. The world needs your words, and it doesn’t need you to be stopped by rigid allegiance to arbitrary agreements of where the apostrophe goes in “mamas’ night out”.
  7. The title is your place to get creative, eloquent, lyrical, dorky, or quote obscure pop culture. Or not — make it boring as hell if it’s 3am and you just want to publish the damn post already. Pretend search engines don’t exist when titling your work, unless you’re writing a review of the latest Canon PowerShot SD4000 IS IXUS 300 HS/ IXY 30S, or the chromatic aberration and barrel distortion of the Sigma 70-200 F2.8 EX DG OS HSM lens used in conjunction with the Nikon D3s, in which case you are probably not reading my blog (unless you are Lisa: hi Lisa! Thanks for the part numbers!).
  8. Bold is for emphasis only. If you wouldn’t speak those words louder or with more gravitas, if you don’t want your reader’s eye to linger there, if you don’t want them to feel you are shouting that sentence, for the love of Calliope, don’t bold it. Definitely don’t bold short thesis statements; your readers are smarter than that. And if they’re not, you don’t need ‘em.
  9. Pictures are a requirement — if yours is a photography blog. Otherwise, pick pics only if it pleases you or is absolutely necessary for the post.
  10. Do not ever, ever change your writing because of numbered lists of blogging tips.

…so perhaps this list won’t get your post to come back as the first entry for “cosleeping safety” in a Google search, and if that’s your goal, go forth, and read many more lists that are rather more serious than this one. Study SEO (the search engine optimization one, not the sexual assault one). There are good, valid reasons for some of the traditional recommendations, and if that’s your thing, may it bring you many Google hits and spread your gospel. I have friends who will pinch me viciously if I imply that the choice is between paying attention to The Blogging Rules and having meaningful content; that’s not my point. (Not quite, anyway.)

Rather, I hate these lists because they assume a monolithic blog reader, and for that matter a monolithic blog writer. I would be undone if I tried to write under 500 words a post, as is traditionally recommended. I write 500 word intros. And yet, you people read them, and read to the end, and respond to the ideas. 500 words isn’t enough for nuance, for introspection, for really examining a topic from as many angles as possible; it’s barely enough for an abrupt intro to most of the topics I write about. And yes, I use extraneous words, I use excessive rhetorical devices that lengthen my posts, I have an addiction to mostly unnecessary footnotes that calls for the help of a twelve-step program, but still, I cannot imagine that most of my work “should” be cut in half, or less.

I also refuse to believe that no one online is looking for posts of more depth, that “no one” will read a post with longer paragraphs, with fewer bolded thesis statements, with rambling introductions and run-on sentences. That some, highly studied (highly privileged?), goal-oriented groups of readers will not stick around for longer posts doesn’t mean the desire isn’t there; perhaps us long-winded bloggers serve niche readerships, but why should we abandon those who are seeking just what we offer to cater to an audience that reads-and-leaves anyway?

I’ve tried, for some of my posts, to implement aspects of SEO. Sometimes it’s because I really would like to get to a wider audience, people who might like my style but haven’t found me yet. But usually it’s because I think I “should”, that I’m somehow a “bad blogger” if I don’t. Usually it’s because I’ve read a how-to-blog list recently. And I wish I could figure out how to, as some promise is possible, keep my voice and keep my morals and increase searchability, if only because having more tools, more skills, is good. But I’m bad at it. And I have no desire to do the things that might make me better, and what’s more, trying to do so creates even more anxiety when already it takes me two hours to write a post and three, at least, to tweak it and edit it and convince myself to just hit publish already. Telling me I “should” do SEO is intended to get my voice heard farther afield, but it ends up silencing me.

So here are my real rules for blogging. I’ll even put them in a numbered list, as is traditional:

  1. Write.
  2. Publish.
  3. Figure out what you want out of blogging, then figure out how much time and energy to devote to achieving those goals, and then do it — or not. This step is optional.
  4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 indefinitely.

Congratulations, you’re a blogger.

28 Comments | Posted on 6 January 2011 by Arwyn | Category: Kyriarchy | Tags: , , , , ,
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Call for anonymous posts

When I wrote The things we won’t blog, I had no idea I would get such a reaction: over 30 comments in 24 hours, talking about the things we don’t feel comfortable writing about on our own blogs, but nevertheless want to get out of us. Obviously, we have things to say that aren’t getting said. And that, I think, is a problem. For myself, I have found that the unbearable and unspeakable become so much smaller once spoken, once the burden is shared1.

So I had an idea2: I’ll publish here what you won’t say there.

I’m inviting anyone who wants to submit a post to be published here anonymously, or pseudonymously, or even with a link back to your blog but not vice versa. I’ve already had several contacts about such a post, so you don’t have to worry about yours standing out as the only one.

Ground rules and guidelines:

  • No naming names. If you’re anonymous, so are they.
  • Rants about individuals, while sometimes cathartic, are not generally interesting or helpful. Rants about how something someone else did affected you, and how you struggle to cope with it, can be. If you’re not sure of the difference, talk to me, we can work it out.
  • Topics should more or less be within this blog’s purview — which, granted, is rather wide3.
  • I will do my best to preserve your anonymity as much as possible and as you desire, including making suggestions about which details to remove or alter to obscure your identity. However, I cannot guarantee true anonymity; as with all online interactions, there is some possibility people you do not want to read it will find it, and may even recognize you or themselves in it. Do not post if doing so would violate the law or put your life in danger.

Pretty easy as far as rules go, eh?

If you’re interested, send me an email: arwyn at raisingmyboychick dot com

NOTE 7 Feb 2010: The first post is already up, as part of the newly named Naked Pictures of Faceless People project (points to those who recognize the Jon Stewart reference). Please read, comment — and be welcome to submit your own story.

  1. Plus I completely don’t care if my family reads about your things-I-wouldn’t-blog-about-here! ↩
  2. Not an original idea, in retrospect, but then nothing is. ↩
  3. Anything related to: parenting, especially biologically appropriate parenting or struggles with it or frustration with the -isms that often accompany its promotion; womanism, feminism, or the biases and oppressions that often accompany these philosophies (such as cissexism and transphobia); social justice, -isms, and privilege, from either or many sides of that multi-faceted fence; disability, sexuality, gender, and all those other things that make us us. Like I said, it’s pretty wide. ↩
29 Comments | Posted on 7 February 2010 by Arwyn | Category: Body, Life, the Universe, and Everything, Naked Pictures of Faceless People | Tags: , , ,
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