Tag: #Blogger

  • Personal Review: New Yorker Profile on Nicole Eisenman

    Do you know who Nicole Eisenman is? I didn’t until this weekend. I got another gift of a Sunday, and was able to do an hour of uninterrupted reading on the couch while listening to music. I chose to make my way through the March 1st issue of The New Yorker, and landed on a profile on the artist/painter/sculptor Nicole Eisenman. I do give a great deal of credit to the article’s writer, Ian Parker, for doing a great job of making visual art come to life through the written word. Not an easy task.

    There are many great parts to the piece, sharing how Eisenman works, and has survived and flourished as an artists in NYC. One part of the article that really struck me was Nicole speaking about how in college, after she came out to her parents, her father, who is a psychiatrist and believed that being gay was a mental disease, would write her long letters trying to dissuade her from being a lesbian, to “save her.” It struck as so depressing and heartbreaking. Her parents not accepting her for who she is bad enough, but to think when she would receive mail from her dad, it was just a dense letter to say how awful she was. I can’t imagine what that does to one’s self esteem, and how hard it must have been to move past that.

    The other thing that struck me about Nicole Eisenman, was how she moved between different forms of expression. Painting is clearly her main focus, but she is also a sculptor. Then if you pay attention and read between the lines, you learn that she was a DJ for a good bit of time, and blogged, and Nicole refers to many cartoons she has drawn in sketchbooks. She struck me as a person who is continually looking for ways to express, and share, and try new ideas. I admire her ability to stay in creative motion, which now I feel bad that I didn’t know of her before.

  • Reading and Writing in the Woods

    I follow Yaddo and MacDowell on Instagram. They are both artist residency programs (Check them out here: Yaddo, and MacDowell) and, for me, there is something very aspirational about following them. I think I would like to have a two-week residency with either one. Hell, I would take two days if it was offered to me.

    Have I applied to them? No, but maybe one day.

    I’m not sure if the reason I want to be out there is to be alone in the woods to work in solitude, or it might be that I would like to believe that I would rub elbows with David Sedaris, maybe help him make a communal meal for the colony. (I would have to fight the urge to tell David that I still give Holidays on Ice as a Christmas gift to people.) It’s as if it would be a working, smart person vacation.

    I think I might have told this story before, if so, then just act like its new…

    The last three major job interviews I have had in the past two years, all three have posed the same “personality” question to me; “If you could do anything, what would you do?” We all know the gimmick of this question, and the expected answer is that you are supposed to say, this job that I’m interviewing for. I preferred to answer the question honestly, but in a non-offensive way, by saying, “I would be in a cabin in the woods, reading and writing all day.” (Out of those three interviews, I only landed the job once.) As time has gone on, I see that my answer was more honest than I wanted to be. If I keep saying it, then there is some truth there, maybe on an id level.

    So, I guess I’m setting up a second goal here. The first being earn enough money from writing to buy a computer for my family. The second is to be in the woods reading and writing all day. If Yaddo and MacDowell want to help out with that, it would be greatly appreciated.

  • Monetize This Blog!

    First of all, I have fun writing this blog. It’s a weekday writing exercise for me, and something that I can easily dedicate 30 minutes to. I have written before about why I do this, so I won’t go down that road again.

    But, this morning, I was reminded of a goal that I had set for myself; I wanted to earn enough money from writing to buy a new Mac Mini for the family to use as a hub computer. That would be about $800 to $1,000.

    Well, the update on that goal is, to be honest, I sort of forgot about it. At the same time, in six months, I have gained 100+ followers, and average 25 views/visitors a week. It took me 26 months to get 60 followers, and in that time, I averaged 2 views/visitors a week. That’s an improvement. Now, if the goal was to generate enough traffic to earn some money, those numbers just aren’t cutting it.

    I have read, and also follow, blogs that talk about how to improve traffic to earn money off your blog/writing. Most of them say pretty much the same thing, which is writing about something you are passionate about makes things easier. (Check! As I like to write about a lot of different subjects that excite me.) The next thing most of these blogs say is that you either need to be the “best” at what you blog about, or the “only” person who blogs about whatever it is you are writing about. (Check! As I am the only person who writes about me!) Then the third thing that most of the advice bloggers say is that you either need to write about a topic that is already popular/in-demand, or you need to convince people to care about your subject matter. (Ung… well… that’s the trick, isn’t it?) If you can’t answer point three, then they say to go back to step one, and start over.

    And they aren’t wrong. It’s business 101, to be honest.

    So… Do I start putting ads on my page? Expand my social media footprint? Move from the free page to the paid one? Do I want to make this a job?

  • Why I Blog, Again

    What am I doing with this blog?

    I have this thought a couple times a week. (This is the neurotic side of me, where I have to continually affirm my decisions.) I write a blog as a daily exercise to express a concise thought in, give or take, 250 words. It is one part of the three types of writing I try to do, at least, 5 days a week. The other two are journaling, which is completely free form, has no structure, and is the structural opposite of the blog. The third type of writing I try is fiction, which is combination of creative freedom, while trying to stay within a narrative structure.

    It’s a good old classic thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

    That having been said, when I do ask myself “What am I doing with this blog,” I do wonder if I should actively try to “make” something out of the blog. And when I say “make” that word means monetize. If I work had at something, pour myself into it, then I should earn money off of it, right?

    First of all, what I like doing, and I could be wrong as I just crossed over 100 followers yesterday (Thank You!), won’t ever generate enough traffic for me to earn anything. As all of you know, if your blog isn’t unique, niche, or teaching something, then it has zero change to earn, or be sticky, or what other buzz word is used. I know only one friend who has a successful blog, and they still have a day job. Second, I have been so hard wired into believing that only earning an income off of my exertion is the end all be all justification. If I were to limit my creative endeavors to what could earn money, then I really wouldn’t be creatively free. I would be beholden to what the market deemed accessible.

    What if I just want to create and share? No strings attached. Just put it out there and see what happens.

  • Gotta Have Writing Goals

    I am still trying to make the best out of this pretty bad situation. Well, a shitty situation. I have no reservations with moving into the “stay at home parent” role, as that’s what the situation calls for. One day, I might return to work out of the home, but I’m trying not to plan too far ahead with anything. And at the same time, I have to have something to work on and move towards; a goal.

    I am working on two writing projects; this blog, and the novel.

    When it comes to blogs, this is, I think, my third or fourth attempt at one in the past fifteen years. This one, though I haven’t been the most frequent or dedicated blogger, is the only one that has stuck. Keeping everything short to just 250 words has provided a good structure to work within. It is teaching me to be concise and clear in my story telling.

    As for the novel, that does give me something long term to work on. This is the fourth novel that I have written, and by saying that, I have every intention of completing it. Publication is a different story, but for now, just having a goal of starting and finishing something seems to be the most important thing while living in this world of never ending Covid.

    What I find myself thinking about is what my grandmother used to say to me growing up; that you gotta have a goal, something to look forward too. Right now, I can see very clearly that grandma was right. She did grow up during the Depression, so I think she knew what she was talking about.