Lately I've been thinking a little about writing and the act of writing and what we write about and writing what scares us even though we are scared.
You with me?
These thoughts have been spurred on by this post that my blog crush, Taylor wrote. (By the way, if you don't follow her, you need to. She is 100% not your average blogger and her posts are like a breath of fresh air in the blogging world).
Now, I could have warned Taylor not to even touch politics on her blog. I could have shouted from the hilltops that writing about politics or religion is pretty much asking to get run over by a bus full of mean blog commenters, but I didn't. I let old Taylor find out by herself.
And did she ever! Bloggers were a commenting, people were a ranting, and chicks were full on pulling out their pistols over the whole Romney/Obama debacle.
(VOCABULARY: Debacle: A complete collapse or failure. Also one of my favorite words. Try to use it in your regular speech and watch your life change before your very eyes.)
I was proud of Taylor when I read this. I liked her post, and I liked the conversation that she had sparked. Good writing should always spark conversation.
Taylor, however, seemed a bit alarmed. People were demanding Taylor's head, and I guess Taylor has never written a confession about parking handicapped so she didn't know how mean blog commenters can be. To win her readers back over, Taylor dedicated today's post to her "softer" side- trying desperately to convince internet meanies that she's not the crazy, sarcastic b%&#* that she pretends to be.
First off, I think people who post mean comments on blog are just straight up not good people. What's the point? If I don't like a book I don't take the time to write the author and tell him his book sucks. I just don't read anything else he has written. So why do blog commenters see it as their personal duty to notify any blogger the second they read something they don't like?
Secondly, I wanted to somehow sit down with Taylor in a coffee shop and tell her that what she was doing was spot on. Of course I couldn't because I live in Utah and Taylor lives in Chicago and I don't drink coffee, but that's a whole different discussion, isn't it? But what I wish I could somehow relate to old Tay Tay (Taylor, can I call you Tay Tay?!?) was that it was good if people disagreed and people said mean things. Heck, it was even good if she lost followers over it.
My theory is this: You have to be willing to lose followers in order to really produce original, thought provoking writing. You can't be afraid of the internet trolls, the mean commenters, the people who are going to disagree with everything you say. You just have to realize that those people aren't who you're writing for and let them go find a nice blog where weekend recaps and Oh, so Pinteresting posts abound.
I guess Dan said it best in his post "How to lose 25,000 followers". He states, "Bloggers have to be willing to lose followers if they ever want to grow," and then he goes on, talking about how you can't live in constant fear of whether or not people will unfollow you because they don't like your content.
In May I sponsored a blogger who politey asked me three times to rewrite my post. My posts were too "controversial", "polarizing", and "inappropriate" for her blog. I had links to a post on birth control, a post about my students' threats to Justin Beiber, and of course, my favorite post describing my sophomore who confused whores with horse. The blogger stated that she didn't want her blog to be a place where these "kinds of things are hashed out." While I, of course, respected that blogger's wishes, I was also surprised and a bit saddened that she didn't want anything on her blog that could spark the least bit of controversy. Where was the fun? Where was the spark? Where was the risk?
In June I cried over a blog post. I had written a post admitting that I had parked in a handicapped stall to run in to the grocery store for five minutes. I thought it would spark conversation, get some people to comment.
Oh, I got that alright. And a little bit more. My readers tore into me. They were merciless. Wanted me dead. The comments were fast and furious. Some were posted anonymously, calling me a liar, classless, and rude. One commenter even compared me to "bean paste." The post had only been up an hour, and already I couldn't take the heat.
I moseyed on in to the bedroom, where Hubs was dinking around on facebook, and with tears in my eyes I said to him, "You need to read the comments on the post I just put up. I think I went too far." We clicked on over to my blog and read through the comments together.
Hubs said nothing.
"I'm going to take it down," I said with a hint of panic in my voice. "People are crucifying me!"
Hubs kept reading in silence. Then he said, "I don't think you should take this down."
"Why not?" I was scared. And vulnerable. And was literally on the verge of tears. People hated what I had written.
"I think it's good. I mean, I don't think it's good that you parked handicapped. But I think this reaction is good. People who are going to stop reading your blog over this would stop reading within time anyway. You can't be afraid to post stuff like this. You can't be afraid of your readers."
And so, I kept it up. Not because I wanted to, but because I wanted to make Hubs proud and convince him that I was a strong girl even though heavens knows I'm not.
The next day I put on a brave face and lectured my readers via blog post: BE KIND, PEOPLE! IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL.
And more people responded.
I had more hits to my blog in that two day period than any other time during the summer. I lost a few followers, but I gained many more. And I had emails up the ying yang of people asking if they could sponsor me.
That wasn't the only time I was scared to post something I had written.
I was scared when I wrote about birth control laws in Utah.
I was scared when I wrote about farts. (Mostly scared of my mom, I admit.)
I was scared when I wrote about my religion. (Terrified is a better term.)
I was scared when I wrote about about gay marriage.
I was scared when I wrote about our culture's attitude toward breast feeding.
But guess what? ALL of these posts are in my top ten viewed posts of all time. They might have caused some readers to go, but they caused even more to come and stay.
Good writing does not succeed or fail based on its ability to please. Good writing suceeds or fails based on its ability to engage. And if I've got 66 people yelling at me for parking handicapped, well, by golly, I guess I engaged them.
Do you think bloggers should write about things that scare them or keep it to sweet and simple posts? Do you take risks with your writing? What are your favorite type of blog posts?
