105 Ways to Give a Book

So, That Happened

There’s this memorable scene in a great movie called State and Main. (If you haven’t seen this movie, you really should. It’s funny. Smart funny. Written and directed by David Mamet. The story involves a movie cast and crew that descends on a small town to make a movie. Incredible dialogue and attention to detail throughout the story.) The drunken actor, played by Alec Baldwin, comes careening down the street in his car and crashes it in a screeching, dramatic way. The street is otherwise quiet, except for one man, the movie’s writer. The actor gets out of the car, sees the wreck, and says, “So, that happened.”

That’s pretty much how I feel today after yesterday’s explosive “issue.”

I’ve applied the more amused side of myself to the situation and found some areas that fit in with my irony-prone life. Now, this is the more vaguely defined Alanis Morissette irony, not the strictly defined literary irony, but still.
  1. I wrote the article “Be a B-list Blogger” as a way to reach out to newer bloggers who might not know how to best break in to the community, but the article ended up as a jumping-off place for being called an exclusive clique.

  2. I was originally going to title the article “Be a Better Blogger,” but changed it because I thought the title was too judgmental. I didn’t want to say that someone was a better blogger because they received more links. However, if their goal was to get more links, than describing it as a B-list blogger was more objective. Or so I thought...

  3. I spent the time away from my computer yesterday calling mothers and rejecting their daughters from my school’s drama club. How’s that for bizarre? Actually, it’s a class with an instructor and a class limit and several people turned in registrations too late, so I had to tell them that the class was full. Man, I hate leaving people out.
Luckily, it’s time for Seven Wonderful Things Before Monday at the Seven Impossible Things blog. In the spirit of being inclusive, let me make sure that everyone is aware that they are invited to go to the blog and list in the comments some shiny happy things that happened over the last week. I forgot to mention there that I got some kick-ass shoes today for eight bucks instead of forty.

Also, the next Carnival of Children’s Literature is accepting submissions... um, today. To explain, the Carnivals is a collection of posts from the preceding month, pulled together by one blog and presented to the members of the community at large. To participate you either use the Carnival site to submit an entry, or you write to the host of the carnival with the link to the post you want to feature. You generally pick a favorite post of the month, though sometimes a carnival will have a theme like love or thankfulness or community.

It may not be too late to be included in the Carnival of Children’s Literature if you write an email to Midwestern Lodestar and explain how you are very new at these things, but that you really, really, really want to participate because now you realize after all the past week’s discussions that it is up to you to get yourself out on the dance floor and shake your booty. Tell her that Mother(Reader) said so.

I’ll be back tomorrow with questions for the bloggers who said they wanted them. Brace yourselves, people.

8 comments:

Kelly said...

Alanis Morisette irnoy! Oh my goodness, you've made my freakin' day. That is so, so, so, so funny.

web said...

Is that like Spider Robinson irony?

Anonymous said...

So personally, I liked finding out wher my blog ranked, am a "C" list and that's okay and I have something to strive for. And I loved the article you wrote about blogging. But I would hate to reject students from a play and have to be the person who call. Tryouts for our school play are tomorrow. At elem, we try to make room for everyone... Happy Sunday.

Jennifer Schultz said...

Hey MR, I wanted to tell you that I liked your article. I hope I didn't sound like I was dismissing it.

Nancy said...

By the way, I loved your B-List post the first time I read it, and re-reading it through this discussion. I think your advice is spot-on.

My only angst about my blog is not whether I'm C-list or not, but whether I've got the stamina to keep at it, even as a C-lister. Now that I've added a 12-hour work day to my life, my blog reading and posting has gotten thinner than I hoped. If I didn't have regular series like the postcards or Words on Wednesday, etc, I think it would be even thinner!

Greg Pincus said...

The idea that counting links via technorati determines any broader sort of popularity is, of course, flawed by itself. But MR... really, now... don't take this so personally. The conversation comes up alllll the time in every online community, and always will. You just keep on doing what you do....

MotherReader said...

I've gotten a lot of support online, and it seems that almost everyone got the point of the article, so I really don't feel that bad. There is nothing there to say that C-list or D-list is anything to feel bad about. The Technorati links are just a way to see if your blog is getting out there. But it takes time and energy, and it's not everyone's goal to apply that time and energy to their blog. And that's fine.

But I remember having four blogs linking to me and wondering how I could be a bigger part of it. Why not share those lessons learned?

Greg, thanks for the support, as you have always be a supportive voice. I'm not feeling that bad, more like a "where did THAT come from?" feeling that kinda took over my Friday.

Melissa said...

What the hell? I take two days off from reading blogs (you know: life happened), and all hell breaks loose? Dang. I missed it.

I also meant to comment that I wanted questions, but again life happened and I forgot to do it, so I missed that too.

Bleh.

Life should just stop happening.