Throwback Thursday: Beyond the (Armchair BEA Agenda) Borders

I'm going "beyond the borders" a bit and deviating from the 2014 Armchair BEA agenda by revisiting a post that was part of the very first Armchair BEA in 2010. I've edited and updated a little, but for the most part, I feel the same way now as I did then.

Writing what you want to read, in your own voice

The session titled "Engaging Your Readers: Take Your Writing to the Next Level" at this year's BEA Bloggers Conference particularly interests me. I've been at this for over three seven years, I want to keep stretching and developing my writing muscles, and I want this to be an interesting place to visit.

Along those lines, Jeanne of Necromancy Never Pays asked a pertinent question during my (third) Blogiversary in March (2010):

Here's my blogiversary question: what would you like to see more bloggers doing, and why? 

I'd really like to see bloggers express more of themselves on their blogs. Unless they stipulate that the only reason for their blog's existence is to review books or products, it's disappointing to me to see a post only when they're reviewing something they've received just for that purpose--especially when the review doesn't tell me much I couldn't read on the book jacket or in the ad copy. It's also disappointing to me to see content primarily driven by the Meme of the Day. I don't necessarily mean that the blogger needs to share a lot of personal information; I know that quite a few book bloggers, in particular, choose to be more reserved with that, and that's fine. But one of the most important reasons I'll decide to follow a blog is the voice of its writer (emphasis added); if I don't get a good feel that the writer has a voice of her or his own, I probably won't hang around for long.

To me, that's what content-building comes down to--developing a blog that sounds like you. It could come out in certain turns of phrase you particularly like to use. It might show in a unique recurring feature that you create, or in the way you tweak a meme into something more self-expressive. It may be apparent in the format you use for your reviews--or the fact that you don't follow a format at all. It may reveal itself in the little bits of your life and personality that slip into posts that you don't consider especially "personal," or it may speak up in the life experiences you choose to post about every now and then.

I am primarily a book blogger, but not exclusively a book blogger. I don't read fast enough to post reviews more often than once a week, and some weeks I can't even pull that off. I'm also a fairly wordy reviewer, and I like to discuss the books I read in some detail, but I don't always discuss the same details. Sometimes it's the writing itself that will get most of my attention. Sometimes it's one or two of the characters and my reaction to them. Sometimes it's the theme or setting or some element of the plot. I try to mix the objective--this is what happens--and subjective--this is how it affected me--in my comments about the book, and I'll try to explain why I responded to the book the way I did. I do rate books, but I give the rating at the end of each review; my goal is for the content of the review to be supported by the rating, and not the other way around.

I've been doing this long enough that most memes have just lost their appeal for me--and if I'm skipping others' meme posts, I probably don't need to be writing my own. Besides, I just don't have enough time to blog-hop and read other responses, and that's part of joining a meme, in my opinion.  I do think memes can be very good for newer bloggers, both as food for thought and posts and as a way to network with other blogs, but it is possible to over-rely on them; it's also possible to outgrow them.

It is possible to keep a focus on bookish content even without frequent reviews and meme posts, though. Do you find yourself reading two or three books in a row that share some themes or story elements? Compare-and-contrast posts can be a lot of fun. You can do features on books you loved in your pre-blog days, or books you're hoping to read soon, without linking them to an established meme on a specific day of the week. Posts about author events and book-related field trips are entertaining. 

Write what you'd like to read. Granted, you may really like reading daily memes and review after review, but if you don't get a sense of the person behind them, chances are your interest will wane before too long--I can tell you for certain that mine does, and that's one reason I vary my content. You don't have to share personal details if you're uncomfortable with that, but any blog that's not corporate in some respect is, by definition, "personal," and it's nice to get to know the person behind the writing.

Your blog is your place to speak your own words, in your own voice.

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A Mother of a Throwback Thursday

Mother's Day is this Sunday, so it seems appropriate to revisit some Thoughts from My Reading on motherhood. I first posted this piece five years ago this week--during the period when I was wading around in the shallow end of the mom-blog pool--but on re-reading it now, I don't think my perspective has changed much.

Bad mothers, good mothers, and mothers who think about motherhood

If you would have asked me at 18, I would never have predicted that by the time I was 45, I would have been a mother for over half my life. (And five years later, it's up to 60%.) My son will be 25 30 (!!) this summer, and I've lived more of my life with him in it than without - I can't imagine it otherwise, even if I try. There have been changes in our relationship as he's grown, of course, and he doesn't really "need" me for much any more - which seems completely appropriate and is just fine with me (most of the time). If objective "outcome measurements" could be applied to parenthood, I think most of them would say he's turned out pretty well - and in the most important outcome measurement of all, I think he (mostly) appreciates me. So, by extension, does that make me a "good mother"?

The thing is, if the hallmark of a "good mother" is that she puts nothing ahead of her children, then I am not qualified. One reason that I didn't want more than one child is that I was not prepared to lose myself in raising kids. (Then again, I had my one child so young I'd barely found myself yet; and besides, I think I lost more of myself in my first marriage than I ever did in motherhood. Both of those matters are stories for another time.) I'm sure that many women would contend that they've found themselves in motherhood and lives centered on their children, though - and that's fine. We see it from a different angle, that's all.

I've reviewed two books on modern motherhood here this week (in May of 2009), and I think that they have more in common than one might suspect at first glance. The root of Ayelet Waldman's judgment of herself--by others, and also by herself - as a "bad mother" is that she has, at times, made her own needs and concerns at least as important as her children's, if not more so. How selfish is that? If it's helped her maintain her "mojo," as Amy Tiemann would call it, it's a necessary sort of selfishness - a self-nurturing. How "bad" is that? We often hear, during times of stress, that we need to remember to take care of ourselves if we're going to be any good to anyone else - does that not apply to mothers too?

Granted, entering motherhood is something that changes who we are - forever. We may never again be the women we were before we had children - and if we're happy with that, great. But we may want to incorporate elements of who we were then into who we are now, and keep some of ourselves just for ourselves. I just don't believe that makes us bad mothers - or bad people, for that matter.

I'm kind of an odd case myself. I was pregnant at 19, and married and a mother at 20. As I said, I barely had time to know myself as an adult before becoming a mother and wife, and it's impossible to guess how different I might be today if my life hadn't followed that path. But I did absorb a lot of the concepts of second-wave feminism while growing up, along with the encouragement of my mother, and I fully expected to blend education and career with motherhood. I worked full-time outside the home for most of my son's life - and still do. While I did read to and with my child, I didn't breastfeed him. I made time for myself as often as I could - I refuse to grasp the concept of "no time to read" - and still do. Our family schedules were driven by the parents' responsibilities more than the child's interests; with two full-time-employed parents, my son didn't get too many extra-curricular opportunities until he was in high school and old enough to arrange them for himself, and my stepchildren are in that position now too (with three full-time-employed parents). I rarely got involved with school activities unless they were done at home, and I helped with homework only when asked; I seldom volunteered for school functions, but I attended parent-teacher conferences regularly.

Looking at that history now, I see so many ways that I could be judged a "bad mother." I recollect the many times I've felt like a bad mother. During the difficult last few years of marriage to my son's father, I often felt like the worst mother ever for subjecting my child to all of that upheaval. However, we've all weathered that storm, and I believe we've come out OK and that my child had a reasonably healthy upbringing. I may not have set my own needs and wants aside for his, but I believe that I didn't ignore or neglect his at the same time - he's always had my attention, and always will.

On balance, I'd say I'm a not-so-bad mother, maybe even a pretty good mother - and I suspect many of us could say the same about ourselves. Maybe we're not "Good Mothers" according to the well-recognized and popularly accepted definition (stereotype?), but it's never been clear to me where that standard comes from, and I've yet to meet anyone who conforms to it completely. Even so, it's rare to find a mother who hasn't felt judged against it - and found lacking in one way or another. I'm not sure how much of that judgment really is coming from others and how much of it is self-inflicted, because this mysterious standard has been so internalized, but we still apply it - to ourselves, and to each other.

I do believe there truly are bad mothers out there, though - mothers who use and manipulate their children, who commit or enable abuse or neglect - but I suspect they're not spending all that much time contemplating what kind of mothers they are. If you worry about being a bad mother, I'd say chances are pretty good that you're not.

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Throwback Thursday: A Diversion on Diversity

I spent a part of my workday yesterday on a field trip...to the theater. We had extra tickets donated for a Center Theater Group school-group performance.

We were there to see The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, a Broadway translation of the classic American opera about a rural Southern black community written by a couple of white guys from New York. I found myself a bit conflicted by some of the baggage this show carries, particularly in light of the big diversity discussion going on in the book community lately. 

And with that conversation in mind, I'm bringing back this post from July 2011 for Throwback Thursday. Let's talk about it.

Diversifying...or trespassing? An awkward circular argument

Every time I read a post about someone’s plans to “diversify” their reading I feel a little awkward. I haven’t always felt this way, but I’ve noticed it over the last decade or so, and I was reminded of it while reading Tayari Jones’ Silver Sparrow last week. My reading choices tend to have a cultural sameness...and I’m mostly OK with it, except when I branch out and then start questioning it.

In my post-college years and into my thirties, I recall more readily seeking out and read fiction by authors of color and different cultures - but I don’t recall it being that much of an effort, because I don’t recall literature being as sub-classified and segmented (I hesitate to use the word “segregated”) as it seems to be now.

My early adult years coincided pretty closely with the onset of “political correctness” and increased awareness of cultural diversity, and I think those developments have been much more good than bad, overall. But at the same time, there’s been increased fragmentation in society - it’s become a “niche” world. For my part, increased awareness and sensitivity to cultural niches outside my own has come with a uncomfortable feeling that I’m trespassing if I explore them those niches too deeply - because they’re not my own. I wonder if the growth in art and literature produced by people of other cultures is primarily meant for the previously neglected audiences within those cultures, and whether outsiders are really even welcome to partake of it.

And so it becomes a circular thing: I find myself reading more within my own cultural niche. That becomes my comfort zone. And because it’s comfortable, I feel even less comfortable when I try to step out of it.

But when I do step out of it, it’s usually worth it; I become aware of new stories and different worldviews, and I question myself about why I don’t get out of my reading comfort zone more often. (See the preceding paragraph for the answer to that - I’m going in circles again.) I wonder if I’m engaging in that word I hesitated to use, but against myself.

I don’t have an answer, but I’d like to get to a place where I feel less awkward, and I’d love to know your thoughts about reading diversely.

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Throwback Thursday: Fear of Fifty, Revisited

I am now two days away from the milestone I wrote about in this post from October 2012, so it was the obvious choice for this week's Throwback Thursday. For the record, I'm somewhat less fearful of it now than I was then...and no matter how I feel about it, it looks like it's about to happen anyway.

Fear of Fifty; Or, Before I Forget

Exactly 18 months from (September 29, the day I gave this reading), barring any unforeseen events, I will turn 50 years old, and I’m beginning to get anxious about it--but for very different reasons than what made me anxious, 10 years and 18 months ago, about turning 40.

The verge-of-forties fears were mostly that they’d be more of my late thirties--which pretty much sucked. At 38, I was on my own for the first time in my adult life--not that I’d chosen to be-- following the “official” end of my 18-year-long marriage (which had “unofficially” ended about 2 and a half years earlier, but that’s another story). And 2000 miles away, my son went off to college. I had my job, my dog, and my books--and visions of a small and lonesome life stretching out indefinitely, except for when I considered cutting my losses, as it were.

And given that I was (eventually diagnosed as) clinically depressed. my forties did start out the way my thirties ended. But I got (long-overdue, obviously) treatment, and I started getting out--and my life got bigger. My forties have included a new family, new friends, new places, and new world-expanding pursuits. Overall, they have been good years--and I’ve tried not to let them be darkened by the fear they could be my last good ones, which is the one I’m approaching fifty with.


Three years ago, I read a book called Still Alice by a neuroscientist-turned-novelist named Lisa Genova--a book I’d resisted for well over a year at that point. It’s the story of a woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and it’s written from her point of view. It's a very well-done novel, and it's one of the scariest books I've ever read.

Genova does a remarkable job of truly getting inside the mind and emotions of an Alzheimer's patient. She includes facts about the disease and its effects without interfering with the story, and she effectively captures its disruption and alteration of family, career, and daily life, but the fact that it's all told from Alice's perspective makes it unique and unforgettable. The instances where the author "loops" an episode by repeating its opening paragraphs at the end, and when she frames Alice's behavior with someone else's response to it, are particularly affecting.

Three years ago, my sister and I read Still Alice together. Last weekend, we participated in the Walk to End Alzheimer's, as we do every year. (Our team helped raise more than $105,000 this year!) We're involved with it because our mother, who passed away in 1999 after seven years in a nursing home, had early-onset Alzheimer's.

Still Alice gave me a lot of insight into Alzheimer’s, particularly its early-onset form, which can manifest with symptoms in people as relatively young as 50. Alice was 50. My mother was just a few years past 50 when it started for her. I have a better understanding of it now--not just the medical details, but some idea of how it may have felt for her. It was terrifying, and as I get closer to 50, it doesn’t get any less scary.

This is a case where “the more you know” isn’t necessarily all that helpful, and knowledge doesn’t afford much power. Alzheimer’s remains incurable and unstoppable; the treatments now available can only slow its terrible progression. There’s a test to determine whether someone has the genetic mutation associated with developing it--but with no means of prevention, what can you do, going forward, with any result besides “no”? At this point, I’m choosing fear of the unknown over certainty of doom--but either way, I’m afraid.

Among people in my age range, jokes about Alzheimer’s are pretty common--when we can’t find our keys, or think of someone’s name, or remember what we meant to do in the kitchen thirty seconds after we walk in. I don’t make those jokes. I’m afraid to tempt fate. I’m afraid those lapses might caused by something besides menopausal hormones or “normal” aging processes. A relative with early-onset Alzheimer’s unfavorably increases the genetic odds.

I fear that turning 50 will flip a switch, or start some sort of countdown clock. I saw what became of my mother in her fifties, and through Alice, Lisa Genova gave me a sense of what it must have felt like for her to experience it. It scared the hell out of me.

Then again, I could take after my dad--83 85 years old and still a piece of work. Like my divorce, that’s another story, and it raises another set of fears entirely. But in the meantime, I have 18 months two days before that switch flips, and I don’t want to be afraid to make the most of however many days will come after it does.

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Throwback Thursday: Nothing Else to Do

During my first year or so of blogging, I was a semi-regular participant in a meme called "Ten on Tuesday." It may even still be around, but when the prompts started getting repetitive, I stopped playing along; I've found that eventually happens with most memes, which is why I rarely do them now. (This Throwback Thursday thing's a little different, though--it's repetitive by design.)

But I digress. I originally posted this list on September 18, 2007, when this blog was just six months and two days old. Let's see if much has changed since then, shall we?

10 Things You Do When You Have Nothing Else to Do

Not to get all "busier-than-thou" about it, but I rarely have "nothing else to do," so I guess I'd approach this topic as more as "10 Things I Do When I Have Nothing Else I WANT to (or HAVE to) Do." Some are definitely procrastination practices, some are things I save for when the work gets done, and some I would actually consider to be things on the "to-do" list, just not high-priority ones.

1. Read (part of) a book--always my #1 leisure activity, but enough time to go start-to-finish in one seating almost never happens (Still doing this, of course. Still at the top of the list...)
2. Catch up on my blog feed-reading (...except when this is at the top)
3. Join my husband on the couch to see what's been recorded on the DVR, and watch some TV 
4. Play with the dog (Sadly, I have not been able to do this since January of 2010, but we'd like to change that this year, if we can.)
5. If it's a weekend when the kids are at their mom's, go for an old-fashioned "Sunday drive" with my husband
6. Re-organize my closet, my dresser drawers, or the pantry
7. This is more like 6a, really--GET RID OF STUFF that I don't use/wear/need so I have less to organize
8. Bake a batch of brownies, cookies, or some other treat (I don't really bake anymore except at the holidays. Maybe that's for the best.)
9. Computer cleanup--delete old files, run scans, defragment the hard drive ("Defrag the hard drive"? Yeah, I originally wrote this back in the pre-MacBook days...)
10. Visit a bookstore (see #1) (...which were also the days when we still had a Borders in town. Sigh.)

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Throwback Thursday: Blogging Midlife Crisis, Revisited

I'm jumping on the Throwback Thursday bandwagon, inspired by the "show an old post some new love" linkup hosted at Mom's Small Victories and the way that Suey tweaked the idea by updating one of her old posts. As my seventh blogiversary approaches this weekend (as does Suey's--our blogs were born on the same day!), this post from September 2012 still feels relevant.

Opportunity, community, and blogging's midlife crisis: Reflections

You might think that after doing something for four or five or seven years, or even longer, you’d have a pretty good sense of how it works and how you’re doing with it. You might even feel pretty sure of yourself in comparing yourself with your peers. Or you might not. Even with all your experience, you may feel uncertain of your place in the landscape. Then again, maybe the landscape itself has changed, which means you may have to reconstruct your place within it...or reconsider how much you even want one.

In some contexts, we might call this a midlife crisis. And based on the public reflections and re-evaluations I’ve been seeing for a while, I’d say blogging--at least, blogging as I’ve known it since early 2007--is deep into one. It crosses topical fields and has affected even the most well-established bloggers.

Many of us who consider ourselves “veteran” bloggers recall when it was a smaller world. We were interested in openness and honesty and thoughtful self-expression, no matter what we were expressing ourselves about. And because there weren’t nearly as many of us expressing ourselves, we found each other much more easily, and connections and community grew pretty readily as we did. We were figuring it all out as we went along, and when we did occasionally catch the attention of those outside our realm, they weren’t really sure what to make of us.

But the outside world caught on, eventually, and they saw opportunity--a new market. And in return, they offered opportunity--and when opportunity knocked, many of us answered, eagerly. And the doors of opportunity opened wider, and more bloggers came for the opportunities. Most of the later arrivals shouldn’t be called “opportunists,” in all fairness; plenty still came for the self-expression and stayed for the community. But still, opportunity expanded all around, and the balance of give-and-take began to shift back and forth at increasing speed. A free-for-all began to sort itself into winners and losers--and although it’s never been entirely clear how the cuts are made, the marketers (and the self-marketers) seem to come up on the winning side more often than not.

Certain events can crystallize the feeling that it’s all gotten out of hand, and few events do that like an off-line gathering of bloggers. The aftermath of BlogHer 2012--attended by 5000 bloggers--brought on the customary round of post-conference reflections, and one of the recurring themes was long-term bloggers questioning whether the conference--and by extension, the world of blogging as it is now--is a place where they still have a place. I’ve collected some of those reflections into a Readlist I've titled "Blogging vets and the midlife reassessment." (The link still works, but I can't confirm that all of the links within it are still alive.) (And BlogHer'14 is capping attendance at 2500, by the way.)

The book-blogger sector went through this self-assessment after the first BEA Bloggers Conference in May 2012. There was a strong sense that the conference (officially run by BEA for the first time that year) offered very little to veteran book bloggers for whom being the object of marketing has lost its allure; we’ve learned that “free books” do have a cost. We’ve also learned that “working with” publishers and PR folks (and trying not to work directly with authors, because that can get overly personal and awkward) leaves us less time to do things with each other. But there are so many of us now, fragmented into ever-more-specialized niches, that there are times when it’s very difficult to see us as one single “book-blogger community” doing things together any more.

And there are times I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. The whole community may be too much for one individual blogger to navigate, but within that whole, most of us manage to find our tribes--and once we do, it's the tribal bonds with other bloggers that keep us doing what we do.

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