My Blog is a Toddler

Happy blogger birthday to me! Today this little blog of mine turns two years old. Since its conception in 2009, LFTRW has seen a number of layout and design changes, and more recently a name/URL change. I've stubbornly resisted categorizing my blog, so the content has been diverse, opinionated and always original. Thank you to those who have stumbled upon this page and read even a single entry. My gratitude is genuine and I hope you'll stick around for more.

Looking forward to the not-so-terrible twos and beyond,
-BB

Absence and Return / What's in a Name?

Fill in the blank.

I'm back from flying under the radar for a while. We'll call it my summer vacation.

Actually, it was a wonderful summer overall. Did good amount of writing on my August trip out west to Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco, three incredible places that have left permanent imprints on me. Hopefully the random bits I jotted down here and there will turn into a longer essay one of these days.

Anyway, I unintentionally ended up taking a blogger break to focus on career-related affairs. I've also been thinking about my blog URL and title. To change or not to change? The issue is that I fear that my readers' comments and some of my own posts won't be retained. Several months ago I altered my URL and noticed that all of my comments had vanished (each post re-set to 0), so in a panic I switched right back to the original URL (the comments reappeared). Has anybody out there had a similar experience on Blogger? If I were to change my URL, would my comments return to my posts soon after the switch (say, within a few hours)? Any advice or reassurance from the blog-iverse would be greatly appreciated.

My desire for a change is the need for a name that more accurately reflects the purpose of this blog. DTRW has thus far been a chunky mix of personal essays and anecdotes, cultural commentary, and my odd brand of humor. In other words, it's an everything bagel with three kinds of cream cheese slathered on it. There's no true focus. Not that I mind that lack of focus-- or the original title itself-- I'm just wondering if there's a name out there that's a better fit.

That being said, what do you think-- does a blog by any other name smell just as sweet? Or, do you judge a blog by its cover?

Happy Blogaversary To Me

No cards or flowers necessary.

Exactly one year ago, I started this blog on a complete and total whim, not knowing whether or not it would end up as yet another one of my failed writing experiments. I was fresh out of college, unemployed and utterly lost.

Today, I'm employed, slightly less fresh out of college and just as directionless, but I'm happy to say that in the past 12 months I've produced 34 posts of original written content on Dodging the Real World.

It's been a useful outlet-- a good friend that's been there when I felt particularly compelled to write about a particular topic that was itching me at the time. In spite of all kinds of daily real world distractions, I cranked out an entry whenever possible. I even received responses, more than I ever expected. Comments are a nice surplus in the blogger world-- the only surefire indication that somebody out there is actually reading what you write. I've appreciated each and every bit of reader feedback.

My blogging goals for the the upcoming year are to 1) write more often, and 2) feel less pressured into writing such massive, painstakingly thought-out entries. If anything is holding me back, it's that. Sometimes I feel that a Tumblr page might be better suited to the blogging tendencies of a 23-year-old: it's quicker, easier, and more prone to bite-sized entries than Blogger is. To switch over or not to switch? The thought has crossed my mind quite a bit these days.

But (there's always a but) I'm not giving up on this thing just yet. I'm already invested in it, and look forward too much to what will spill out of my head and onto the screen in the weeks/months/years to come. And so, I hope you'll join me in wishing a happy 1st birthday to this little blog of mine. No gifts, please. Just good vibes.

Here's to Year #2!

The Trouble With Blogging

Blogwise, I've been in a bit of a funk lately. (Yes, I just started a sentence with the word "blogwise." As of now, it exists.) Entries have been few and far between these days, and I don't like it one bit.

In an effort to combat this unfortunate streak, what else could be more relevant than to compile a few reasons why we put off blogging? Here we go. The trouble with blogging is:

1) It's time-consuming. Blogging is an investment. Writing entries on a consistent basis takes time, lots of it. If you can't sit down and put the hour(s) in, it ain't gonna happen.

2) You need inspiration. From my experiences, I've found that staring at the computer screen trying to squeeze words out of my brain doesn't produce good work. Good work comes from good ideas. Without the idea, there is nothing.

3) There's that constant pressure to be original. What I have dubbed the "Battle Against Cliche" has been especially stifling to the creative development of my blog. Who wants to write about the same old things? (To quote the Barenaked Ladies, "It's all been done...") I sure don't. At the same time, obsessing over wanting to be different too easily swallows up this blogger in the blaze.

This would be a nothing but a list of complaints unless I offered some kind of solution. I'll try my best.

So, how to fight blogging dry spells? I propose:

1) Making the time by re-prioritizing. This is a skill I have been particularly unsuccessful at lately. For this, I blame 1) the Man, and 2) TV. At the end of a long 9-to-5er (or 8:30-to-4:30er in my case), all I want to do is plop down on the couch, turn on the boob tube and not get up til bedtime. Oops. Honestly, if blogging really is more important to me than Jersey Shore marathons (which it is), Snooki & company will have to wait.

2) Being ready when inspiration strikes. That means anytime, anywhere-- no need to be tethered to a laptop 24/7 when you've got a pen and paper (or its digital equivalent). The Notes application on my iPod Touch has been a valuable tool for storing spontaneous bursts of thoughts and words, especially when I'm on the subway. The tiny screen keyboard is a bit error-prone, but it makes typing quick and easy. I need to utilize this device to the fullest.

3) Not trying too hard to impress. This doesn't translate to "put little effort into it." What I mean is that the more you write from within, from what you know, as honestly as possible, the more the originality will shine through. Entries practically write themselves when passion about the topic comes first, rather than measuring success against a "cliche counter." This is so much easier said than done, and probably what I need to work on the most.

If you're thinking that this entry was too self-aware, I'll have to disagree. How can growth as a writer and as a person come about if not from self-awareness? The trick is to know thyself, to be constantly re-evaluating, to always allow room for improvement. In knowing myself, I hope to build a better blog. Page by page, line by line-- word by word.

Writing About Writing

I've always found that writing about writing tends to fall into self-indulgence. Even as I just begin to compose this entry, a squawky little voice in my head is telling me: "don't try to sound like you know what you're talking about too much."

Such reservations most likely stem from my perpetual awareness of what an amateur I am. Why should anybody listen to what some 22-year-old-- just a kid, really, in the grand scheme of things-- has to say?

And yet, that very question is exactly what motivates me. What do I have to say? I'll prove it to you. If another human being can connect with or derive some kind of meaning from my written word, then I know I've succeeded... mostly. (I don't believe that anyone is ever 100%, fully, truly satisfied with what they've created. Even if you're 99.9% happy, there will always be that irking 0.1%, which leaves you with two choices: cast it aside, or let it eat at you. As much as I try to pick the former, the latter often wins out.)

So here I am. This is the period in my life where I'm aspiring, hoping, dreaming that I can one day turn an interest into a career. How does anyone even begin to do this?

There's only one way I know how: cultivate. It's like taking care of a plant: unless I nurture this passion, it won't grow and develop into something greater. Letting it die would be sad, but it would be even more pitiful. And just downright lazy. (I'm no botanist, but I'm pretty sure of this.)

Thus, with my college newspaper column gone (and a circulation of 5,000+), the first step was the very blog that you're looking at right now. These past few months, DTRS has been an adequate outlet for those sporadic bursts of inspiration that bubble up in my brain. When they threaten to spill over, that's when I take up the pen and paper (err, keyboard and monitor) and get to work. While I certainly don't write in it as much as I would like-- the daily 8:30-4:30 is more draining that I initially predicted-- I'm just glad that it didn't crash on the takeoff and fizzle quickly into a failed experiment. So far, so good.

The next step: I just began a six-week "Nonfiction 101" writing course with the Gotham Writers' Workshop in Midtown Manhattan. If you're a New Yorker, then you've probably seen their little yellow newspaper kiosks interspersed on street corners around the city at some point. After 3 months to the day (eep!) as a full-time working stiff, I've felt achingly inhibited both intellectually and creatively (the true nerd actually misses being in class-- that's me). So I signed up for a course with Gotham while I could still afford it (the student loan bills start rolling in next month-- I know nothing more terrifying at the moment).

The verdict is still out. I'm the youngest person in the class, and the only recent college graduate. The "students" include five lawyers or lawyers-in-training, two therapists, and several businesspersons. Oh, and our teacher is a published author who spent three years in a Korean prison when he wasn't much older than I am now. An intimidating environment? Pardon my language, but I almost shat myself.

And yet, it felt strangely familiar at the same time. All fourteen of us sat around a rectangular table facing one another. We did a series of writing exercises pertaining to memoir and shared some of them with the class. I forced myself to raise my hand and read, because I've done this before and can do it again. Spontaneous, in-class, timed freewriting-- an activity that many find natural and liberating-- is actually my Achilles heel. (I'm the nut who thinks too much and agonizes over each and every word. Ask my girlfriend; she's seen me at my worst.) All the more of a reason, then, that I should be working on it.

As jittery as I can be, I try to remind myself that if I had allowed fear to defeat me, then I honestly wouldn't have accomplished much of anything in my life. Coming out, giving Villanova a chance, and letting myself love and be happy-- none of these would have happened. I can't even fathom the thought of a universe in which I'm still trapped in my 17-year-old body. Repression and regret got me absolutely nowhere, and the same lesson can be applied to writing: as much as writing frustrates me to no end, I'm a thousand times more frustrated when I'm not writing.

Let that be my mantra. As much as life is so uncertain at this stage, at least I've found one thing I'm absolutely sure of.

La Nouvelle Histoire

Sometimes I wonder if it means anything that most, if not all, of my favorite works of fiction considered to be part of the "Great Books" canon, feature males as their central characters-- and were written by male authors themselves.

It's a lengthy list: Warren's All the King's Men, Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated, just to name a few. Today, I'm adding the classic Fahrenheit 451 to my collection (just finished it on the L train this morning).

Have I always inherently related more to male protagonists than females? Are men simply more interesting to read about than women? Am I grossly overgeneralizing? Can I finish this paragraph having written it entirely as a series of questions? (Nope. Ran out.)

A partial explanation: simply put, there are far, far fewer books that have been put into print starring women, told by women, written by women. Perhaps that was the most obvious answer.

But I find it somewhat shocking that most of the shiny new paperbacks I eagerly look forward to purchasing at Barnes & Noble so noticeably lack a female perspective. Even the select two or three books that have changed my way of looking at the world (and that's doesn't happen too often) contain women characters that are starkly one-dimensional.

What I mean is that fiction-- creative nonfiction, too-- is longing, begging, for the new and improved great American novel. A piece for the 21st century that tells a story never told before, in a way we've never heard before. I know that there's room out there for the woman/hero, the gay/hero, the gay/woman/hero in literaure, and there will be a day when that isn't weird or wrong.

Part of me wonders whether I'm capable of even writing the first chapter-- hell, a single page-- of my own novel. The mere thought of it gives me the jitters. I might have a better chance of winning the lottery than being the next J.D. Salinger.

At the same time, it makes the blue in my eyes burn a bit more brightly. Every kid has a dream, and a kid can dream, can't she?

Baby steps, though. Before the novel comes the novella. Before the novella comes the short story. Or the essay. (It's a lot like one of those wooden Russian dolls-- a nugget within another nugget.)

And before that?

For now-- the blog. Here's to getting started.

Inaugural Post

Welcome to DODGING THE REAL WORLD.

This blog is, first and foremost, an outlet for my thoughts. Now that I'm a college graduate (eep) and no longer have my weekly newspaper column to fall back on (I'll miss you, Vis-a-Vis), it looks like I'm going to have to do things a bit differently. True, I won't have an audience of several thousand Villanova students this time around, but I think I'm ready for something a bit more intimate.

Funny, though, that it's been a good four years since I've blogged (my painfully awkward teenage years were chronicled in exhausting detail on a Xanga page-- let's leave it at that). Perhaps, then, this will take some getting used to. Or maybe not. We'll see.

For the moment, as I continue to search for a job and fumble cluelessly towards the next stage of my life, I'm taking this with me. There's a long road ahead, and hopefully the perks and quirks of being a 20something young adult (read: drunken merriment) won't stop. College may be over, but it doesn't mean I still can't have fun.

So here we go: I'm dodging the so-called "real world"-- one day at a time.