I went to the Brooklyn Blogger Meetup at the Bell House last night and I have to say, I think it proved that Brooklyn is the bloggiest borough. (Or at least the food bloggiest.) The place was so packed that it was actually hard to meet people, but I still managed to have a number of great conversations with people, even though most of them went like this:
Other Blogger: So what’s your blog about?
Me: Um . . . random crap?
Other Blogger: What do you do when you’re not blogging?
Me: Look for work.
(This last did get me a few sigh-fives. It also led to a tiny bit of schmoozing, which had not been my intent on going, but was welcome nevertheless.)
Since I managed to fit “smartgrrrl.tumblr.com” on my nametag, some conversations went like this:
Other Blogger: What’s your Tumblr about?
Me: Mostly pictures of my cat.
Other Blogger, response 1: . . .
Other Blogger, response 2: Wherever he is right now, Marco just got a headache (This only made me want to post nothing BUT cat pictures. Cat Ladies of Tumblr Unite!)
Other Blogger, response 3: Yay, cats! (This happened once, from the person representing the Cheezburger.com network. I also happened to have met her before. Hi, Kristyn! And hi, Sara! I promise to remember you next time.)
Though it did seem as though there was a fair amount of networking happening, most notably in the ladies room (and yes, this song has been in my head since last night), and occasionally without any sort of finesse, my motivation for going was simply to meet other people who live in Brooklyn and like to write about stuff. And I realized a couple things. First, I envy the people who have single-topic blogs. Maybe it’s just helpful in situations like this, when the number one question on everyone’s lips is “What do you blog about.” Last night I’d wished I’d had a specific, concise answer to that. I thought about answering “Writing,” but then I’d have to explain that it’s not a blog about writing, it’s a blog for my writing, but then that felt a little pretentious, so I just went with “stuff.”
But the truth is, I like writing about random crap. My knitting blog was a single-topic blog, even though I often did write about random stuff there as well, and what killed the mood for me there was the pressure to always be writing about knitting (this was self-inflicted pressure. I never felt pressured by any of my readers). And then of course when I started writing professionally about knitting, that really killed any joy I might have found writing about it personally. There was an added level of self-censorship there as well, as it wasn’t a secret where I worked, so my personal knitting blog was somehow representative of the company I worked for, and it all just became a big ol’ mess that I opted to run away from. So I appreciate the freedom that writing about random crap provides. Today I’m writing about this. Tomorrow I might write about shoes, or Mario Kart, or Doctor Who, or what my almost-year of unemployment has been like (ooh, if I make it to a year, I am so having an anniversary party. This time there WILL be bathtub gin, and I will require everyone attending to wear barrels with suspenders). Though having freedom of topic can be overwhelming and often leads to an incapacitating bout of indecision, I think I prefer it. (Even though there’s a voice at the back of my head saying, “This is just because you’re not passionate about any one thing enough to want to make it your focus in life.”)
Anyway, I am babbling. Again. The other thing that last night did for me was spur me to finally get around to the design changes I want to make to this page, even though again, my choices are overwhelming and I’m not entirely sure where to start. Design is not one of my strengths. But this theme was only ever supposed to be temporary, and I got used to it, and I got distracted by other things, and now it’s time to get back to it.
If you are one of the few people I did talk to last night, and you’re visiting me now because of that, please let me know in the comments. And welcome! And thanks! Hope to see you at the next meetup.
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