Not everything is for the internet.
My second year of grad school begins next week. Tonight is an orientation reception for the first year students, and I’ll be there as an anti-shyness agent and walking information booth.
I’m totally confident that I can answer their questions about professors, workshops, the colloquium. I’ll know how they feel and who they should talk to, but that’s the extent of my experience.
What I’m learning right now is that second years are way more terrified than first years. Most of us anyway.
The only thing keeping me from freaking out more is freelance work that I’ve been trying to wrap up before school starts. Unshockingly, that doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen. Which reminds me that I’m also trying not to panic about not writing anything much at all, and that viable or timely ideas are going stale in my head. And sometimes I worry about this site, how old and lame it feels, how I should be a good and constant blogger, do the things I know I should do. Or I should flip the switch and not even think about blogging because it’s different and doesn’t serve my purpose. Plus that whole wad-blowing thing is totally true, which is why I’ve never been a daily poster of posts (not everything is for the internet and if I were that type of blogger I would have to have done it years ago).
Whatever happens in the next week, I can’t wait for school to start.
Good luck Mia. Take a deep breath and go kick ass!
Thanks Scott!
You did a wonderful job as an anti-shyness agent and walking information booth, for which I have immense gratitude. Interesting you should mention the wad-blowing thing about blogging, as I have spent the last year pondering why many people in MFA candidates don’t blog. I always thought of blogging as a way to build up to the wad-blowing - a quick way to test an idea - not the wad-blowing itself. You are definitely right, though: not everything is for the internet. Also, I can’t wait for school to start.
I used to wonder that too. Especially b/c the publishing industry says, “you need a platform! you need a blog!” but the only good blogs are internet famous people’s blogs, by people who’ve become good writers by writing every day on their blog.
An author turned web-site-haver is another thing entirely. They don’t know the internet and typically don’t want to blog. I can think of like - Wil Wheaton who wrote books about his acting career and now is professionally Wil Wheaton… as an example of Awesome, but they’re really pretty rare. You also need something in you that either loves the internet or geeking out with it in some way that incites you to spend time doing it.
Man, I’m about to type a lot about the differences between blog writing and MFA writing. Maybe I should just do a post about that. :) Ok, let me make coffee and we’ll have our answer. brb
Oh, I know there is a BIG difference between blog writing and MFA writing! My blog is my testing ground. I don’t worry if a sentence isn’t perfect or there are typos. It’s the spew; getting the idea out there, but not perfecting it.
um, i wrote the longest blog post ever once you got me thinking.
they’re so going to take my internet away.
Sorry about that.
hehe no, i’m the one who should apologize. that probably could have been a bullet list! haha
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