I’ve done it for a month and a half now. I’ve scanned the grid of Daily Prompt and Post-a-Day offerings and skipped right over “I’m a Writer, Yes I Am.” Why? Because the title of the blog annoyed me. “If the blogger has to convince herself”, I judged, “then the post is likely lame.”
But today I clicked on it. What the heck. I read all the others so I might as well read hers, too. It was clever, I liked it. So I read her “About Me” Heyyy, she is a writer, yes she is! And the annoying title (sorry) was taken from a pretty cool song.
And what about the title of my blog? Some people hate Baptists. I wonder how many of them skip over my brilliant posts.
Starting right now I will think again before I judge a you-know-what by its you-know-what.
Forgive me Martha.
You made me laugh and it IS a pretty cool song! I was raised American Baptist and I’m here to tell you that you can take the kid out of the Baptist church (or kick them out) but it’s impossible to take the Baptist out of the kid…
As for the title of my blog, I thought the song was at once affirming and defiant which pretty much sums up my feeling toward my own writing. It really doesn’t matter what kind of absurd stuff is thrown at me by agents, publishers etc. ad nauseum. Nothing they say and/or do (or don’t do) changes the reality that I write. The song — well I heard it in my car one night driving (down the street) home (35 miles) from teaching a class that was OK. The song started (out of no where; I know of NO radio stations that routinely play this song) and I saw behind the whole thing, my job and my expectations of my students, and I knew “I was bored with looking good” and I was “listening to the music with no fear.” That’s what writing is. ” The truth under everything, I’m a writer, yes I am. 🙂
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Reblogged this on I'm a Writer, Yes I Am and commented:
When I started my WP blog it was an experiment. I got some advice from a book that an aspiring author these days needed a blog and thousands of followers. I wasn’t thinking much about my “personal” blog. I was (and possibly am) far more interested in the blogs connected with my novels. These blogs have (each of them) followers in the single digits. My own blog has a few more but not THOUSANDS as do some other blogs. I never thought about the title of this blog as being “annoying” — but I have heard from more than one reader that it is. Titles are supposed to attract readers; it would seem mine doesn’t, especially, do that. When I read this post by The Reluctant Baptist I got a sense of why. I appreciated her post about my blog very much and her point is well taken; it is a pretty weird title unless one is moved to go look at the “about me” feature and see what’s going on. Writing, for me, for many years a teacher and teachers are those bastions of civilization, has been the thing I do that is MINE. It has been the way I define myself apart and separate from any “function” I’ve had in society — so, when I heard the Teddy Bears/Iggy Pop recording of “Punkrocker” one night as I was driving home from school it seemed to say everything I had to say about myself and about writing. That’s how my blog got its title…
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Thank you for your post. I have followed a few posts based on their titles thinking they would be thoughtful and spiritual-based; and after a few entries, was disappointed. And you are right, I would probably never click on a post with ‘baptist’ in the title. So you have confirmed that the title can be misleading, and we need to sometimes overlook it. I’ll check out your blog.
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Thanks Gloria! Have a wonderful day (or night depending on where you live). I’ll check out your blog, too. Oops, wait, I don’t see a link. Do you have a blog?
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