UnFollowing Fridays?

Can you believe I’ve been a Muse for less than a year?

When they first asked me to join and fill the Friday spot as a regular, I was incredibly honored. A short blink later, the fear reared. What if I let them down? What if Following Fridays (what they used to have in my place) became Unfollowing Fridays, where people would block the website in droves due to my witless banter? I was already good friends and I respected The Muses so, so much that the last thing I wanted to do was hurt this awesome thing they had going.

So what did I do? I researched.  I took a long look at what sort of blog posts I enjoyed reading. The more I scrutinized, the more patterns emerged. There wasn’t one specific formula (gah, there never is), but there were several commonalities. And, per my emulator personality, I used these elements to write my own posts. Here’s some of what I learned from that exercise.

• PERSONAL: I’m also drawn to being “behind the scenes” as Rosie commented on Monday. This can be the deep neurosis of an author’s brain or a picture of her dog sprawled on her desk (I’ll never forget Veronica’s photo). It takes these deities off the pedestal an inch or two and makes me realize that some of them are semi-human. It makes this game a lot less lonely knowing that Libba Bray freaks out sometimes, too.
• COHESVIE: I love essays and narratives that have a binding thread, such as a joke or metaphor or story that wraps the whole thing together. It makes posts feel free standing, opposed to just journal entries.
• VOICE: As Donna said, blogging is a relaxed forum. It’s a place to kick off our digital shoes and have one of those late night dorm room chats. We can discuss our lives, philosophy, or make stupid jokes. The grammar and punctuation don’t have to be perfect (though I think Katherine’s always are). We can be open, honest, and vulnerable. It’s been said a million times this week, in a million ways: but this is a conversation, folks, not a lecture.
• PERSPECTIVE: As Mr. Friday, I’m always trying not to repeat the brilliance that the other Muses have covered earlier in the week. In complete disclosure, sometimes it feels like they’ve said it all – so the only way I can add more is trying to find a unique angle.
• APPLICABLE: What I love about Talia’s posts is that they ooze with useful tidbits. As writers, many of us know the theories…but what we need to hear are specific tools and tricks to make this game just a little easier.
• KEEP IT FRESH: I like seeing different sides of an author’s life and mind. What we try to do here at The Muses is make sure we touch on a variety of subjects and formats (for example, Book Blog weeks, craft weeks, weeks on us, guest bloggers, etc.) just so you don’t get tired of hearing the same ole’ thing…and we don’t get tired of writing it. Same goes for my own entries, if all of them were those *super-clever* writing products then I’d get old fast…or faster than I am.

This last year, I’ve enjoyed blogging a ton. Sure, sometimes it’s hard – because I don’t know what to say, or how to say it, or if I should be sharing it with everyone. Sometimes it eats into my normal writing time. And sometimes I feel like a doofus and/or a dud (please hold your tongue). But I keep going back to using these guidelines and, week after week, I look forward to crafting my posts, learning from the other Muses, and making contact with this growing, supportive community of our Dear Readers.

Ok, thanks for reading – you’re now free to unfollow.

KIDDING! Stop! Please…It was a joke!!!