On blogs as a medium, platform, and artform…

Amanda Palmer has this great rambling post about the blog being seen as a lower-class art form because anyone can do it. She's talking in part of it about the great freedom and simplicity that blogging offers, allowing anyone to deliver anything they want to a worldwide audience. A musician can start a blog and release music samples globally. An artist can start a photo blog to capture all their latest creative efforts, whether sculpture or painting, or the photograph itself. And yes, writers of all types can bring you pieces of their mind one post or one book at a time. Not every writer sells fiction either, and some blog writers are not artists at all, but instead are citizen journalists attempting to cover the holes they see in mainstream news.

All of this is true and it's what makes blogging so awesome. And what I'm doing is like a fusion blog where I offer fiction and news and reviews, but I also add in a lot of ranty personal journal entries. And yet, there are downsides to this level of vulnerability.

I find this is true for me as a reader of blogs as much as it is for me being a writer of several blogs. Blogs bring the possibility of learning that an artist I love and listen to is virulently anti-trans. (Bill Corrigan, FTW.) Or I learn a writer I thought I respected has personal views so repulsive, it ruins my perception of them. I might read someone's blog post and get so upset that I will never read that person's books, even if I may have been following their blog for months.

What I'm saying is, blogging isn't meant to be a precise and perfect medium. It's meant to bring issues to the attention of readers as reports come in, and sometimes, those initial reports are way off, or are off-putting. I hate bringing up 9/11, but do you remember how the mainstream media first reported 30,000 people dead? The numbers lowered fast. Not low enough to take away the shock or the pain, but the people paid to have all the facts fudged their numbers ten-fold. Those same people have said that blogging as a news source leads to an unfair, unbalanced view, and that we should still rely on the media because they help put these tough issues in a proper perspective that a blogging journalist might not. Riiiight. Because CNN and Fox are so balanced and accurate in all their reports too. And, at this point a lot of blogging journalists are also working as reporters for traditional media. So it's not like the field is full of amateurs. And it's not like the amateurs are doing such a bad job either. Look at how many big stories in the past years broke first on blogs?

Blogging is an indie-vidual experience, and each blogger brings to you what they consider important. After a while here on my blog, you should know what to expect. I'm either going to talk about something I'm reading, playing, watching, or writing. When I read the news and report it back to you, I also relay my opinion. In this way, I'm an amateur journalist. But I also offer you the link to the original article, so you can see for yourself the story I'm reacting to. Maybe later an update will come out, and the facts of the original post are not so accurate. In which case, it's likely that I'll post an update. Because even if I like to be an amateur bullshitter and tell a lot of tall tales, when I'm reporting a story to you about someone else's civil rights fight, I'd rather leave the bullshit behind and just present what I know, and what I feel.

A lot of people don't like how blunt I've become recently. A lot of people would prefer that I go back to telling more jokes and not talking so much about prejudice and privilege. But as a victim of one who lacks the other, I need this outlet to say "I exist! This is how I feel about this messed up world." And some people read my stuff here and decide they never want to read my books because they don't like the tone of my journal.

I get the same problem when a guy like Scott Adams puts his foot in his mouth when blogging his views on women. (He pulled the blog, but I certainly won't forget what he really thinks.) And I will never regain my respect for these people after learning how little they think of others. I will never regain respect for the other Zoe. The people who now hate my guts will never again respect me either. Those bridges done already been burned.

So there is a huge risk in being this vulnerable. When I see a writer blogging, I inwardly cringe, because I wonder how many posts I'll get in before I find something that sends me running away. I can read a musician's blog and then listen to their album as two separate things. But I find it less easy to do this for a writer who is also a blogger. Amanda talked about musicians who get tired of music while on tour, and I think this may be a similar problem where I have to blog about writing, so I'll be damned if I want to read another writer blog about writing. And if this is how I am, I'm pretty sure other readers AND writers feel the same way approaching my blog.

So yes, blogging is an ugly and unpolished communication format that has its share of flaws. Even when I feel like I'm doing what I wanted to accomplish here, it doesn't mean my readers see things the same way. They may feel I'm attacking them instead of talking to the problems. They may not even see a problem, or they may feel I'm exaggerating. And, I don't really know, because it's really rare for anyone to comment, "By golly gum, this post really made me think, and thanks, chum." I mean, aside from spam-bots. Because really, who else besides bots says "By golly gum" and "chum"?

Drifting, and that is kind of my point. Blogging doesn't have to stay in one topic all the time. Even a dedicated blog like Daily Kos still has open post threads meant to talk about other stuff. I'm a fiction writer, but on my blog you might come here on any given day and find a news article, or a book review, or a ramble about my health, or a rant about "you people." You don't tune me in because you want to hear a particular topic being stressed, although you might do that on a blog with a specific focus. You come here because you want a piece of my mind. What I offer from day to day may not be to your liking. The questions that you as a reader should make are, do you want to weather the posts you don't like to make it to the posts you do like? And, should you decide that you don't want to waste time here, is it because I say mean things, or because sometimes some of those mean things make you feel uncomfortable?

I get a lot of heat for not finding nice, non-divisive ways to phrase my thoughts. But I haven't seen any success from people who are forced to use professional decorum. For instance, scientists of many fields have presented their findings with the most rational language possible, and have still been accused of manipulating the data, or of playing politics. (That's political pundits projecting…preposterously.) They have all faced death threats for saying the truth in nice, polite terms.

I, am no scientist. I mean, I could be, if I could ever get my ass back to college to keep studying math and astronomy and geology and what not. The topics are endlessly fascinating to me, and I've often lost whole nights to research when I'd meant to be writing. But what I'm saying is, I'm a punk writer who was formerly a punk teen. It is not in me to be nice to people who do not respect me. It is not even in me to fake niceness to potential customers. So punk, but perhaps not so profitable.

There aren't many punk writers, despite there being cyberpunk, steampunk, and splatterpunk. There ARE punks in those 'punk fields, but not every 'punk writer is really a punk. But I'm really a punky punk long before you think of me as a punk writer, even if I don't write in any of the traditional 'punk fields. Clear as mud yet? Good, let's move on.

But the thing is, some people think that even if I am a punk writer, and that my blog is also a part of my artistic platform as a punk, I shouldn't really be a punk. I should be nice in every post and find some way to bridge the gap of understanding. It's a bit like asking NWA if they could act less like rappers during public appearances on TV so white folks can sell more of the records to…oh wait, people DID ask that, didn't they?

I can't help that I'm a punk. I wouldn't want to change, and I don't mind being on the fringes of every group. Sure, I'd love to be read by more people, but I can't carve a path as an anti-mainstream artist and then complain that the mainstream won't even touch me. As I've been joking to friends on Twitter, it's not much of a marketing platform to say "I write in protest of everything you idolize." But in a nutshell, that's what I am and it's what I do.

I don't long to be mainstream. Okay, that's a lie. I wish I could write at least one commercially viable book that would get me enough funds to live off of for a few years. But my muse hasn't come up with anything even remotely close to the term commercially viable, and I don't think she ever will. I don't like to covet what I can't have, and I'm not one to move goal posts and complain that the mainstream is too narrow. It's closer to the truth that I'm not for everyone.

So my blog isn't really trying to court every reader. Hell, most of the time, I'm not even sure who it is I want to be reading my stuff. And blogging is like the more immediate way to assess me without having to read my other stuff. So if you don't like me, you don't have to spend money on my books. I'm cool with this, with people deciding whether to read me without investing funds. Like I said, I'm doing this too.

At the same time, I cut slack for some writers. Like Stephen King? I hate reading most of his opinions these days. But I'd still read a new book from him. Same thing for Anne Rice. Well, except I'm not reading her baby Jebus books. She can lub her some Jebus without me paying for it, thank you very much. But I have gotten Angel Time, and one day, I may even read it. Really.

What I'm getting around to saying is, maybe sometimes, we need to learn to separate blogging from other facets of an artist's life. And I say "we" because this is probably something that I should force myself to do too. Because there's a number of people who've recently revealed sides of them that I don't want to know, and yet, I do know those people are good writers. By blocking them out now, I might miss something brilliant that they do later. And what about writers who I previously admired, but who have taken time to directly insult me online? (This is a surprisingly long list of people, actually. It almost makes me feel like a celebrity to have been digitally spit on by this many folks.) How do I follow someone who raises my hackles, even if I may want to read their book?

I can't not be offended after being triggered. I can't undo the damage and walk on. I don't see how most people can, so I'm not saying it's easy. So after being triggered by a writer's blog, I have a hard time going back. If I don't, how do I know what they've released a new book? Twitter isn't reliable for these kinds of announcements, and the blog is ideal for finding out when to order the new stuff. So how do I follow someone whose posts can become like an emotional toxin for me without warning, when all I want to know is when the next book is out?

And, I have the same problem here with my blogs. Some of you probably just want to know when the books are out, and you don't want to know I'm a crazy cat lady in need of at least two cats to feel complete. Or that the stray fur has slipped off my ratty sweatshirt. Which is why I'm trying out this filtered and unfiltered approach. And yes, there is no duplicate of this long ass ramble on the other blog. Welcome to unfiltered country. Mmmmmm, now that's flavor.

It's an experimental medium, and I never said I was doing this right. I'm probably one of the few long-time indie-authors who doesn't have a book on how to self-publish and make it big promoting yourself. But that's because my goals were never about being a big-time writer. I don't write the right kind of stories to pull in those six-figure paychecks. I try, really, but by page fifty my handsome main is chugging cock like a Cuban corona. Either that or I kill a dog or molest a fictional kid. And if it's a female protagonist, she's probably bi or trans, possibly both. But to date, only one of my characters has sparkled…two…okay, wait, three…no, four…

NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

It's never, ever been my low self-esteem talking when I say I'm not working toward the mainstream. There's fifty thousand writers who can all write mainstream. Some of them even with a marginal degree of skill. I am a fairly skilled writer in my own right, and I am prolific as a motherfucker, but one thing I can never call myself is mainstream. This is a realistic assessment of my art and my perception of where my art fits into traditional markets. It doesn't fit, which is why I'm not exactly working my ass off to be on every social site and forum. I can't be everything to everyone, even if I wanted to. That I don't makes it even trickier.

But this is my only platform now, aside from Twitter. This is my only chance to get readers to sit down, and sadly, as a punk, half the time I want to write a post entitled, "Why I hate you, and why you should be glad I don't have access to The Button." (The button in question being the History Eraser, a big red, jolly, candy-like button.)

I know, I should be sweet and tell you how I want us to be bestest buds. Except, I don't. I'm sorry, but I cannot possibly be bestest buddies with every single one of my readers. I have trouble just keeping up with my relatives, and I'm talking about the ones I love and WANT to talk to. So if you wanted to send me an email, great. I'm sure I'll send back a reply, but I'm not thinking of you as a friend, just as a fan. If that's too impersonal for you, sorry. But hey, if you want someone honest who is passionate about her beliefs and thick-headed, I may be the right thick-skulled punky chica writer for you.

I just want you to read my stuff and react. That doesn't mean you have to buy anything, or agree to anything. If you're reading an article, I probably want you to act on the article. That is, unless I say I'm just bringing it to your attention and don't expect a reaction. But in those cases, I generally try to say that upfront to avoid confusion. But if I'm working my butt off as an artist and as a journalist, part of why I do it is because I want to make a reaction. It may not always be a good reaction, and often the reaction I get is not the one I was aiming for. As I've said, experiments fail.

Still, I like to experiment, even if it ends in a lot of failures. I try to invite y'all along for the full ride, but some folks don't want that. Some folks just want the stories, and having to deal with me ruins everything else I do. I can't see stopping this outlet for my feelings, so the best solution for me is to have two blogs; one where I'm really me all the time, and the other where I hold back a little so as not to push away people who might have read one or two of my books. It's not a perfect solution, but it is an attempt at a compromise. Whether that compromise means anything to readers will take a while to determine. But the experiment goes on…

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