Lifeline

Last Friday was a very full day. I served as a moderator for a half-dozen senior thesis presentations, then had a short break before delivering a lecture to sixteen applicants to my academic program. I spent maybe 90 minutes in my office all day.

During one of those 90 minutes -- one of the last of them, actually -- a man poked his head in my door. I recognized that face, even though it was older and wiser than when I last saw it. Austin was a student of mine several years ago, and he has gone on to amazing things. I haven't seen him for quite a while.

He said he was in town and just dropped by the campus to see if anybody was around. I explained that my colleagues weren't in the office because they had schedules like mine that day, and that I was only a few minutes away from my next obligation, apologizing that I couldn't do more than hug him and promise to spend more time later.

Austin said that he understood, with his usual grace. He didn't seem disappointed or make me feel bad at all. But he did mention one thing he said he needed to tell me.

Not long ago he spent some time out of the country, in a place with only brief and spotty internet access. He told me he would go to my blog and open a bunch of posts in separate tabs. That way he could read through it while he didn't have internet. The blog, he said, was a lifeline.

"I haven't updated it in so long," I apologized. He said it didn't matter. Reading through the years of previous entries helped him stay connected.

My book Prayer Shawl Ministries and Women's Theological Imagination came out last November. I excused myself from a lot of other writing during the two years of intense research, writing, and editing that it took to produce. I've got another book under contract that I am about to start working on in earnest -- another reason to postpone a potential re-commitment to writing more often here. I still have this blog in a lot of social media profiles, and sometimes wonder if I should take it out since it's largely historical.

Well, historical is just one perspective. I'm glad it's here when I need it. And maybe somebody else sometimes needs it. Thanks for the view from across the ocean, Austin.

A new season

Tomorrow I turn 48 years old. You know, as long as there's a four in that tens column, I still feel young. And in two years when that changes, I'll probably feel young anyway.

I haven't written much in the last year. A post a quarter, maybe two. It's because I've been busy, of course; in my down moments I haven't felt like doing much other than knitting, sitting, watching TV, hugging my daughter. But it's also because this past year has been All About Me, and even though this is my blog, I've never been comfortable treating it as a therapist's couch. I haven't wanted to show up every few days and repeat the same stuff about my mid-life crisis.

But you know what? I think that's finally over. I made the decision to leave administration, and despite some lingering backward glances at the extra money, I'm happy about that every day. I couldn't be prouder of Noel and the awesome work he's doing at his brand new publication. I'm bringing to a close a period in my life where I practiced weekly television criticism, and reclaiming those evenings as time to do something other than work. And I've gotten an immense, humbling outpouring of praise for that work as the series I cover come to a close -- a thousand times more readers than I ever could have imagined, and hundreds of people saying nice things about what the work has meant to them. My promotion application for full professor is making its way up the chain of command. I've even gotten a couple of recent invitations to speak at conferences, related both to my theological work and my criticism. My research excites me, my book is underway, and there's a stack of other projects I hope to get to someday. It feels very much like I've made it to where I wanted to be when I started out.

Maybe it's the end of weekly writing about television that has prompted me to come back here. I've learned a lot about writing from blogging every day for years; I put much of it to use writing on short deadlines two and three times a week. I wouldn't like to see those muscles atrophy. (I'll need them for all the books I have to write.)

And while I've been away, my kids have been growing. I love to write about my kids. They are endlessly fascinating. People tell me they like to read about my kids -- well, about Archer particularly. He's done amazing things while I've been writing elsewhere. I don't want to miss the chance to get the stories down, and to share them. (I'm inspired here by amonthofson.com, Matthew Baldwin's lovely project about how his classically-autistic boy interacts with the world.)

So let's see if we can meet here more often, shall we? Teaching, writing, television, kids, theology, movies, sports, and the occasional self-indulgent state-of-the-Donna report. Hope it turns out well for all of us.

Writers write

You may have noticed that I haven't been writing here every day. I made a special effort -- sometimes a superhuman one, it felt like -- to blog every day for several years. But after missing a day or two inadvertently recently, the imperative has seemed less urgent. I've tried not to let more than a couple of days go by without writing, but when I've been traveling, or writing elsewhere, or just didn't have anything to say ... I let it go.

And I've been having a lot of trouble figuring out what to write about for quite a long time. I feel like I need to stay away from religion and politics, except in a careful and general way, because people close to me whose views aren't really congruent with mine make up a big chunk of my readership. I doubt they want to read any tossed-off rants, and walking a tightrope of appropriate tone and balance isn't something I'm usually excited about doing in my leisure time. For some reason, other topics that have made up a big chunk of my posting in the past -- anecdotes about the kids, popular culture, technology -- have fallen by the wayside. I'm left with my crafting (which also takes a lot of effort to write about, what with the template I've set for myself) and my work. And every time I finish a post about administration or teaching, I wonder whether I'm really communicating with anybody but myself and a couple of other academic types.

Writing every day was important to me for a long time. I used it as a discipline that gave my life order. I tried to keep my chops honed for the many pages of text I'm regularly asked to grind out on short notice. And I felt an obligation to my readers to be there for them.

I have plenty of other disciplines these days, from classwork to service to sticking with my diet. My readers are few, and if they are anything like me, the way they read blogs (through RSS feeds or aggregated subscriptions) prevents them from noticing when I take a day or two off.

What I worry most about, by letting the blog relax into a more occasional thing, is whether I will lose my ability to crank it out. I don't want to become a writer who needs inspiration to get the words flowing. There's too much prose for which colleagues rely on me to become an artistic type. Every week when I have to produce a TV review in an hour or so, I feel relieved to find out I can still do it. Whether I come back to this blog on a daily basis, continue at this relaxed pace, or let it slide into abandonment, will depend less on whether I find subject matter that motivates me, and more on whether I feel I need the structure.

Practice, practice, practice

Next week my seminar on handcrafting will convene for its first class.  I'm revising and reworking the syllabus extensively after debuting it last fall.

One of the changes I made was to ask students to begin posting on the class blog during the summer.  I had them fill out a survey about their current expertise, then assigned them to learn to knit, learn to crochet, or master an advanced knitting skill if they already had experience with both crafts.  Each student will post on the class blog to report on their learning process and show off their work.

In the next few days I expect a flurry of posts, but several students have already shared.  Holly is hoping that she'll be able to loosen up so her stitches come off the needles more easily -- and that the gerbils that power her home computer get some 5-Hour Energy shots.  Kearstin is knitting a scarf for her cousin with Knit Picks Palette yarn (one of my favorites, but very fine weight -- I hope she's using appropriate needles and stitch pattern). Ashley has hit upon the excellent idea of practicing various stitches by making squares for a blanket. Molly has mastered cabling with the help of Debbie Stoller, but is now dealing with the dreaded stockinette tube effect. Ashley R found a YouTube video that helped her produce a lovely ribbed swatch.  Check out grayfox's crochet -- not just a practice swatch, but also a perfect granny square!  And NoMercySedia has big plans for something in Slytherin colors, or at least she did back in July; I'm looking forward to finding out how those plans worked out when she makes her second post.

Having the students post during the summer was a good brainstorm.  They are telling their stories, revealing their frustrations, asking the right questions and taking pride in their efforts.  I hope you'll subscribe to the blog and follow their adventures (and those of their classmates) all semester long.  And I hope all my changes to the syllabus work out as well.

Let's get the gang back together!

Last fall I taught a seminar called "Craft Wisely: The Past, Present, and Future of Handmade." One of the assignments was for students to contribute several times over the course of the semester to a group blog.

This fall I'll be teaching the class again; my task for June is to whip the syllabus into some kind of shape (which involves some tough thinking and decisions). One thing I've already changed, in consultation with my TA, is to ask students to post to the blog before the class starts. That will give them a chance to reflect on their summer activities learning a new craft, or advancing their skills in one they already possess, and get them started communicating to the world.

I was excited to see one of the students post right away! I believe this is Brittany, already an accomplished knitter and crocheter, going by the moniker of "the obscene knitter" (because of what comes out of her mouth when her crafting goes wrong). She decided to tackle lace for her foray into advanced knitting skills.

If you don't have this blog in your feed reader, please add it. More content will start popping up as the fall semester gets closer. And remember that you're an integral part of this educational endeavor; if you comment, the message strikes home to the students that these little essays are going out to a vast and unpredictable audience. Their writing will improve as that becomes a reality, and they'll start thinking about this assignment -- and maybe about this class -- in a different mode. So leave a comment and be a part of the class!

Raptured

I've been shying away from expressing opinions in this blog that might not be shared by some of the folks I know read it -- especially political and religious opinions.  As a result, I don't weigh in on many of the issues that are the major topics of discussion in the culture around me, and I certainly don't bring my theological perspective to bear, even when the topic is religiously charged.

It's been a surprise to me to find, while moving the posts in my old blog to a new location, that expressing exactly such opinions used to be my common practice.  In fact, I'll go so far as to say that having a place to have my say on these subjects was one of the main reasons I started blogging.

I find myself rejecting many potential writing topics because I know my opinion on them is strong but not necessarily congruent with some segment of my audience.  I'd like to modify that practice -- not in order to offend people, but in order to think through some subjects where I might quite naturally be entitled to an opinion.

So in that spirit, it is incumbent on me to mention that the devotees of a powerful fringe radio network have become convinced by their leader that the rapture is going to happen at around 6 pm on May 21, two days from now.  Interestingly, Harold Camping (the originator of this prediction) asserts that this 6 pm scheduling isn't Jerusalem time or Greenwich Mean Time, but local time -- that is, believers will be caught up in the air (as Paul first suggested) when the clock strikes 6 in their time zone, and the rapture will ripple around the world hour by hour.  That's a new one on me.

Mainstream Christian thinkers and scholars have already given many reasons for doubting Camping's timetable, based on the naive, relatively recent, and checkered pedigree of premillennial dispensationalism. Anybody with some historical knowledge should already be skeptical, since such definitive and dated assurances have been made many times previously and have always failed.

I grew up in a church where the Rapture was a fervent article of faith, and a near-future historical event that we all looked forward to.  We saw it in films, heard about it in revivals, sang songs about it around the campfire.  But I came to realize, during my university education in religious studies, that the Rapture is not a prophecy of an end-times event that can be pinpointed in the Bible, but instead is a piece of a larger theory created by assembling a complex puzzle from verses scattered all over scripture -- including verses that quite clearly were not intended by their authors or understood by their original audiences to be prophecies of the end times.

So not only am I confident the Rapture isn't happening on May 21, I'm confident the Rapture isn't happening at all, ever.  Even if I were a biblical literalist, I wouldn't believe in the Rapture as it's preached and in the system in which it was invented and remains embedded -- as a removal of believers from the earth prior to the rise of the Antichrist and the time of tribulation.  Because that's a combination of Paul's statement that the dead in Christ will rise first and believers will meet Christ in the air when Jesus comes again -- that is, as the sequence of events in a single happening called the second coming -- and the Revelation narrative with its seven-year periods and various Satanic figures and awful plagues.  There's nothing obvious or literal about combining those two parts of Scripture, written by different people for different reasons in completely different political and religious circumstances at least fifty years apart (notably, one before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and one after).  The fact that many people regard this combination as natural and obvious is a testimony to how thoroughly this century-old system of interpretation has infiltrated parts of the evangelical world.

Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to deal with our long-term problems or care about the future of the world's oppressed and poor because the world was going to end?  If the countdown to the new heaven and the new earth relieved us of our responsibilities to each other?  I know that thoughtful Rapture believers would never advocate such a perspective.  But I also know that the end of the world and Judgment Day, if asserted as actual near-future historical events, are bound to relativize the value of all our other mandates and efforts.  

So I encourage everyone to pay their bills and leave their 401(k)s alone and get the oil changed in their cars.  We'll all still be here May 22, and on the day after the next predicted end of the world, and basically until the world is done with us -- not when God decides to pull the plug.

Moving day

I started blogging in 2003 largely because iBlog, a piece of blogging software for Mac OS X, was being offered for free.  I moved  to Blogger in 2007 largely because I could no longer update that software for free, and because its CSS complexities were beyond my ken.  Ever since then I've only kept paying for .Mac and its successor, MobileMe, because I didn't want more than three years of blogging (including my first several months of daily blogging) to disappear.

Today I started the process of moving all those posts to a new Tumblr space.  It's likely to be a long haul in fits and starts; I'm copying each post individually, and it's going to be a low item on the priority list.  (If there's a better way, someone let me know.  The reason I haven't done this before now is that I've been looking for a way to port it wholesale, or at least in big batches.)

Once the homepage.mac.com space is closed down, there will be some temporary linkrot in this blog, wherever I've linked back to the original Union, Trueheart, and Courtesy.  Gradually I hope to relink those posts to the new site.  Maybe some of you fancy programmer types know a way to accumulate a list of links to make that job easier.

Fairy tale hats

Today's post about hats fit for a fantasy world is at Five Alarm Fire.

Yes, that's right -- another blog!  This one isn't my own, though.  It's a group blog started by a member of the silver-medal-winning Dish Rag Tag team Five Alarm Fire.  The team was so wonderful, so active, and so generally enamored of the camaraderie achieved during the race that the members wanted to keep in touch.

Shortly after the race, I put out the invitation to the eleven other team members to make hats for my class's Conway Cradle Care service project, and I've gotten three different contributions so far (with one more in the mail on the way, according to the USPS Click-n-Ship notification I just got my e-mail).  Each has been more beautiful than the last.

More importantly, they are tangible evidence that the spirit of our project reaches beyond our classroom walls, inspiring and motivating people around the country who become connected to it via various social networks.  I'm realizing that what I did this semester -- sending a personal invitation to a small group of folks with whom I'd recently been personally and rather intensely involved -- is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of leveraging social media for efforts like this.  Or looked at another way, there are people out there waiting for such an invitation -- hungry for the opportunity to connect, contribute, and make a difference with a personal touch.

Reaching out

The students in my Craft Wisely class have been busy ... but that hasn't stopped them from blogging and podcasting.  Check out what they're writing about.  Pick a link, click in, read, and leave a comment.  Your brief message will reinforce the nature of blogging for them.  They're writing for a vast unknown audience, and when you pop up and identify yourself, they can't help but be reminded of that.

• Kate writes about knitting beards -- and an unlikely congruence with a running joke in her family.
• Natasha reminds us that the creativity of designers is all around us, and is intimately connected with the creativity of makers.
• Anna finds solidarity, community, and strong connections in the example of Burning Man.
• Adrea meditates on the unusual interest her knitting arouses among her family and friends.
• Ariel reveals the man and the grieving that inspired a very special hat.
• Eric comes out of the closet as a knitter (we always knew!) and looks back to describe the shape of the closet.
• Kirsten shows us some beautiful examples of illusion knitting.
• Sara interviews a state senator about her knitting habits.
• Shannon introduces us to the baby who will receive a very special blanket and labor of love.
• Kat risks becoming a crazy cat lady and develops a passion for crocheted flowers.
• Christabel shares the experiences that taught her why to give.
• And the Craft Wisely podcast rolls on with conversations about our class texts, discussions, and projects.

Thanks in advance for visiting and commenting!

The Y factor

This week, the Craft Wisely student bloggers tackle:

• Eric, a novice male knitter, braves the church knitting circle to learn from the best. 
• Shannon goes from frustrated zero to gift-knitting hero in just a few months.
• Kirsten tackles illusion knitting and creates a piece with a hidden meaning.
• Sara finds inspiration for her crafting in the orphans she met in Peru.
• And this week's podcast from the Dust Storms group delves into the meaning we find in the artifacts around us -- those we make and those we preserve.

Please visit and leave a comment -- I guarantee you'll be amazed and invigorated by the way these students think, write, and knit.  And when they hear from you, they'll be invigorated knowing their words have reached a listening ear.

They write -- will you read?

Last time I directed you to the multi-author blog for my Craft Wisely class, the only thing up there was my introductory post.

Now there's two weeks' worth of content provided by students in the class, reflecting on their experiences, thoughts, and creative connections between class material and their handmade lives.  Kim wrote about the division of labor in a medieval castle being constructed in Arkansas.  Kate wrote about what she's learned by roasting her own coffee beans.  Christabel wrote about bringing craft from Tanzania to the States and back again.  Becca wrote about a pact she's made with her grandmother that has gotten her past the frustration stage as a knitter.  Natasha wrote about knitting for charitable organizations.  Kat wrote about the ups and downs of learning crochet.  Four other students posted a podcast about the discussions we had during the first week of class.

Their writing and the experiences they relate have often astounded me.  But me -- I'm not the point.  You are the point.  You, the audience they do not know, the readers they never imagined they would have.  When you read and leave a comment, you provoke an epiphany for these student writers.  They are not just fulfilling a class assignment when they write.  They are communicating to people they've never met.

You can change everything for these students.  And I'll bet you'll enjoy reading what they have to say, and learn something in the process.  Please follow at least one of the links in this post and comment.  I thank you in advance, and will be happy to accept your thanks later.

The limitless classroom

I've frequently had students keep blogs during my classes.  The idea has been to give them a place to post their own writing that's accessible to the larger world.  Writing to a real audience changes the academic game and makes the task of communicating more urgent.

For my handcrafting seminar this semester, I'm doing something different.  This class emphasizes the collective journey we're taking into the world of making things by hand.  So I've created a multi-author blog, Craft Wisely, where all the students will post.

So that there won't be fifteen posts every week, and to divide up labor, I've assigned the students to groups of three or four people each.  The groups will rotate posting duties week by week, with each student in the assigned group posting his or her own thoughts.  On a parallel rotation, groups will record podcasts with each other to discuss class topics and ideas; those will be posted on the blog as well.

I hope you'll subscribe to Craft Wisely and follow the students' journey there during this semester.  They bring different skills and are starting from different places on their trek into the world of handmaking.  I expect this shared record to be diverse, interesting, and possibly occasionally enlightening.  Please join us there starting next week, when the first student posts will appear, and comment boldly -- the more it's clear that they have readers beyond the boundaries of the classroom, the more they will make connections and grow as writers and thinkers this semester.

Through their eyes

I have twenty-six students in a class I'm co-teaching this semester, and as usual, they're blogging. The subject is filmmaking. On some nights, I'm presenting a film about filmmaking and leading a discussion after the screening. On other nights, my colleague is facilitating a workshop about the basics of digital filmmaking. Meanwhile, the students are podcasting about each week's class, getting their hands on editing software, dividing up into teams, and planning a short film by the end of the semester.

As I've mentioned before, the reason for having the students blog is to get them writing for an audience other than their instructor. And nothing makes that into reality like comments on their blog from people they don't know. So I'm going to introduce them briefly below, with quotes from their blogs on the subject of last week's viewing of Sunset Boulevard. If you're so inclined, visit a couple that catch your eye, and leave a comment. Your help will make the assignment much more than an assignment -- letting the students know they are engaging in real communication with a vast, unknown audience.

All About Austin: "Gloria Swanson is fierce, just plain fierce."

Blinking Blue: "I love and hate Norma, find Joe charming yet cowardice and Max is just too twisted to discuss."

Check It Out: "It seems that the theme behind it, with reference to the movie industry, is that only the strongest survive."

Discovering Film: "Even the way that the credits were being filmed on a moving road boosted the movie's overall effect."

Diva's Choice: "Her life is a script, a dramatic show that she lives, and Joe helps her with her life, which at the end is not successful as well, but she does get her time to shine."

Doug On Film: "Norma and Joe? They definitely did it. Don’t pretend you didn’t play it out in your head."

Figuring Out Film: "I can only imagine what it would be like in the 1950's to understand everything they were saying and see it as reality."

Film Blog: "This film revealed the dangers of denying reality. If you do, you’ll be crazy like Norma. "

Film In Words: "So I just have to ask, is everything that we pointed out, whether out loud or just personally, intentional?"

Film Through A Changing Lens: "I left last class under the impression that I had watched Sunset Boulevard thirty times, each through the eyes of a different individual."

Film: A Journey: "No, I couldn't relate to the washed-up, psychotic actress and her turmoil, nor could I relate to the struggling people vying to "make it big" in Hollywood, but I was reminded that everyone has flaws and anyone can get stuck in a place they have no desire to be."

FilmResidue: "I would like to say that Norma is a great shot with a pistol. Three shots. All of them hit."

Imran's Film Making Blog: "I kept thinking something pivotal would happen so that everything would work out because you get attached to Joe and become sympathetic towards him."

Learning Film: "They really are on the same playing field; Norma is just 20 years ahead (and CRAZY!)."

Let's Make A Scene: "I had planned on taking notes during the movie, but after the first 15 minutes, I was completely captivated."

Lights, Camera, Action: "Often the world of film imitates, if not exaggerates, what is happening in the real world at the time."

Lights ... Camera ... and Action ... Yes, It's FILM!!!!: "For me, my love for the authenticity of this movie all comes in when I realized that all the characters being mentioned in the movie were real people."

Mariam's Film Blog: "More than the character, this film had two dimensions of the world."

Movie Thoughts: "Like many other students, I was puzzled at first by Joe's motives at the end of the film."

Musings On Film: "it would seem that Sunset Boulevard is a film about the pointlessness of dreams and the shifting nature of personal reality."

Reel Talk: "There is just so much that goes into the screen plays, so much symbolism and themes that are hard to catch as a 'superficial' movie watcher."

The Film Is The Experience: "I find that constantly re-watching films and figuring out what makes them click and work really well and what makes them not click and just plain suck can help in building your own vocabulary of critical thought with regards to film."

They're all the leads in their own stories: "Joe gets a taste of the twisted life of an "actor" when he plays the role of Norma's lover/companion while trying to continue to live a normal life in the real world."

Thoughts From My Brain: "The overacting, dramatic lighting, and thrilling music just started to make my stomach turn."

Watch This: Films: "The age was one of mastering that which was available and the creation of novel methods and ideas to uncover the endless possibilities of reaching into people's hearts and minds."

You can take it with you

Amazon is now letting blog owners publish their blogs on its Kindle store. So I've just made this blog available for your Kindle.

This is a nifty feature for Kindle owners and bloggers alike. You can choose to get my daily post sent to your Kindle, if you prefer to read it that way. There has always been a selection of big-name blogs to which you could subscribe, but now it's open to everyone.

Of course it costs money -- a monthly subscription fee of $1.99. Nobody's going to take away the web version, or the RSS feed; the blog is still free to the world. But some Kindle owners might want not only to have the blog sent to their machines and appear in their reading lists automatically, but also to put a nominal sum in the tip jar, as it were.

If you read me daily, and you have a Kindle, consider subscribing, reviewing the blog on Amazon's product page, and recommending me to your friends. I didn't put Union, Trueheart, and Courtesy on the Kindle to make money; frankly, if anything more than one more Starbucks chai latte per month trickles in -- ever -- I'll be shocked. As a Kindle enthusiast myself, though, and as an observer of what voluntary micropayments can do, I'm excited about the new venue.

Stand up and be counted

I am reliably informed that today is International Delurking Day. Some of you lurkers have already revealed yourselves through your embrace of the Archies, the hottest once-a-year meme around. (There's still time to get in on the fun!) But there must be more of you, unless forty people are directed here each day by The Google looking for report from Hoople or computer in my life (Romanian only).

So it's time to sheepishly raise your hand and announce to the class your name, hometown, major, favorite movie (only one allowed, people, show some decisiveness), last music you heard, and what your superpower would be if you could have one. Speak up so the people in the back can hear you!

A life in public

I got a message from a colleague today on Facebook, in response to one of my status updates. I've integrated my Facebook status with Twitter using an app called Tweeter (the actual Twitter app on Facebook doesn't appear to be entirely reliable). So my Facebook statuses always begin with "Donna tweets:" and then the message.

My colleague asked whether I actually found Twitter useful. It's a timely question, because the way I use Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, and other social networking services has evolved since I wrote about their profusion in my life a few weeks ago.

My students are all on Facebook. On Facebook, status updates are a must, because they show up in your friends' minifeeds, and your friends are reassured that you are around and active. I need to be active on Facebook so that my students can contact me there. I need to be there, and be social there, in order to be part of their lives. The key to effective teaching and mentoring is proximity -- and Facebook gives me proximity, so long as I regularly update and therefore appear on my students' pages.

I resisted Twitter for a long time because (a) it seemed redundant since I was already posting statuses on Facebook, and (b) I didn't know why or to whom I was broadcasting my status on Twitter. I have a reason to be active on Facebook, one related to my job. I have a reason to be active on my blog, one related to my personal goals. Why did I need to be active on Twitter?

Thanks to Noel's entrance into Twitter, which allowed me to piggyback off his following list and add a bunch of far-flung friends, acquaintances, and people I admire, the purpose of Twitter has suddenly become clear to me. Twitter is micro-blogging in a social context. It's the place where the dozens of daily thoughts or happenings that are too minor for a blog post, but that nevertheless are worth communicating, can go. And it's where you stay within the orbit of people in whom you are truly interested. The trick to Twitter is to follow only people whose lives you actually want to keep up with -- because you know them, because they lead interesting lives, because they have something to say that you want to hear. And the trick to twittering is that you aren't doing it for yourself -- you're doing it to be a part of the lives of the people who follow you. Presumably they are following you because they're interested in you. Unlike blogging, which I would argue you do primarily for yourself, with an audience as motivation rather than reason, I believe that you don't twitter for yourself, but for your network. It's freeform communication, an ever-reconfiguring cocktail party where you can wander from conversation to conversation, but where you have an obligation to contribute appropriately -- to be interesting, but not overpowering.

And now that my administrative colleagues have joined Plurk, I'm even starting to make use of it in the way I had hoped to do. I listen in (and sometimes comment) on friends' Plurks, but if I used it for status updates or even link sharing, it would be redundant -- I'm already doing that on Twitter. Instead, I can use the time-stamp and private plurk functions -- not part of the Twitter concept -- to keep notes on decisions made and official activities undertaken. It's a notepad where I jot down what I told a student in an advising session, or what we decided to do about a certain policy in an ad hoc meeting. Since it's searchable, I can quickly find plurks I posted about any given student or any given topic, a must for retrieving records of the hundreds of minor decisions we make every week. What did I tell Student X about her scholarship? Did I promise Student Y he could come back into the program? What did we decide about students taking classes for grade forgiveness? Being able to private-plurk a timeline of decision points means a record that can actually be useful, because I'm living in it continually.

Having a bunch of memberships in sites that ask you to be active by posting what you're up to -- that feels like an obligation, a burden, and if you don't know who you're doing it for or why you're doing it (other than that everyone else seems to be), it won't be useful. Now that some of those questions of why and wherefore and who-for have been sorted out for me, I feel a sense of purpose and value in twittering, plurking, and facebooking.

(Kwipping, though? Haven't quite figured that one out.)

Breaking all the rules

A friend and mentor asked me about blogging today. Why do I do it? What do I write about? He's been writing all his life, and is looking for a way to share what he does with the many people who are interested in his wisdom.

I wish I were in his position. For all the years I've known him, he's been sharing thought-provoking bits of philosophy, personal existential reflection, and commentary on current events with his colleagues. He's got a storehouse of ideas and experiences that he could dole out daily for many, many years.

It's only occasionally that I feel like I have something to say through this medium. But then, I didn't start blogging because I had anything to say. If I'm being honest, I started blogging because I wanted to record what my children were doing, and what I thought about it. I knew I wouldn't have the discipline to keep a personal journal -- but maybe if some other people were out there reading and waiting for the next post, I'd be motivated to continue.

My intentions changed when I started blogging daily almost two years ago. I got hooked on the insight about writing -- composing, thinking, constructing, editing -- that blogging every day during NaBloPoMo '06 provided me. If I learned this much about my writing process and my writer's voice from blogging for 30 days, how much would I learn if I kept going?

So my blogging is more about process than content. I do it because writing in this blog teaches me something about myself. I don't do it because I think I'm writing well, or because I think I have a perspective that will enrich other's lives. If I thought that, I doubt I'd continue blogging daily, because I don't write well daily, and it's only on rare occasions that I believe I've gotten at something important or worth saying. I still want to record what's going on with my children as they grow up; I was never good at saving mementos or taking enough pictures or video. But I don't want to write about that every day, either. The only reason to write every day is because writing every day is a worthwhile thing for me to do.

That means it's doubly and triply kind of all of you to stop by. I don't intend to give you anything through this blog; it's not for you, ultimately, nor do I believe there's that much I have to give. So you readers are a gift to me that I have no way to repay.

If you blog ... why do you do it? If you don't ... why not?

Divisive

Apparently with Cory Doctorow, you either love him or you hate him.

Or maybe you don't know who he is (raise your hands out there). If you don't read Boing Boing, one of the biggest multi-author blogs on the web, or if you don't follow science fiction, you may never have run across him.

But for those who do, he inspires wildly disparate reactions. Mention him on the internet in a positive light, and watch the vitriol come out of the woodwork. Whole blogs are powered by animus toward his love of Disneyana, his dedicated self-promotion, his steampunk obsession, his copyfighting free-information advocacy. My good friend Adam Villani, on the whole a positive, easy-going guy, has been known to devote posts to how mad Cory makes him.

Today the A.V. Club ran Tasha's long interview with Doctorow (not related to E.L. Doctorow as far as the Ragtime author knows, by the way), and in an effort to pre-emptively calm the storm, Tasha posted about how pleasant and knowledgable he was, and how much she liked his latest book Little Brother (although she's been lukewarm on some of his past novels). Her comment probably deflected some of the more hateful insults, but nevertheless the discussion became a referendum on Cory's "internet persona" and writing talent (or lack thereof).

For the record, while I find Doctorow's particular hobbyhorses occasionally tiresome, I share his optimism about technology sparking creativity and revitalizing traditional media, and his dread of government and corporate co-option of technology for surveillance and unreasonable search-and-seizure. I'm not a Disney or steampunk fanatic, but I enjoy some of the links he highlights on Boing Boing related to those topics -- and those I don't are easily skipped over.

Likewise, Boing Boing helpfully thumbtacks the cover art to Cory's books onto every post he makes about his readings or con appearances or the like, and I skim right by them in Google Reader with hardly a break in my consumption of Boing Boing's other "wonderful things."

I understand why he rubs a lot of people the wrong way, I think. He's an enthusiast and he's highly visible, and unlike his fellow Boing Boingers he seems to encase every link he throws up in a Jello mold of his own personality. That kind of idiosyncratic filter can make him come off as a person who is mystified by other interests and dissenting views. But he's never bothered me. And after reading his interview -- which probably represents him better than the brief screenbytes in which his "internet persona" is commonly displayed -- I find him a far more congenial thinker than I had previously imagined, even with all our shared perspectives. It certainly makes me want to read Little Brother.

Too much writing

When I committed to write every day, back in November of ought-six, I meant it. And aside from the occasional day without internet access, I've posted here at once in each twenty-four hour period.

But there are days when I spend almost all my waking time writing. And on those days I feel very much like I've fulfilled my write-every-day pledge, even though none of it has been for this site.

So far I've resisted using that as an excuse to skip the day's blogging, although regular readers will know that I sometimes come darn close. (I frequently post short entries organized around pictures or kid anecdotes or even just links to the other writing I did that day.) To me, the pledge to dailyblog isn't just a pledge to write every day -- it's a commitment to a certain set of readers. Not that those people are waiting with bated breath for my daily post; I'm not that conceited (or popular). But the way I keep myself committed to daily writing is by obligating myself publicly to my few (wonderful, faithful) readers. I can't make some private deal with myself that some other piece of writing "counts" for my daily output for that day. I've made a public vow; the public, then, gets to witness whether I live up to its terms or not, and the place they gather to check in is here.

Today I spent the entire afternoon writing the last five hundred words for a 2200-word encyclopedia article on "Films for Religious/Missionary Use." Encyclopedia work is highly rewarding, but that's largely because it's difficult. The encyclopedia article should be comprehensive, but not sterile. It's a challenge to craft a brief introduction to a topic on which multiple books could easily be written. After working and reworking the article, I certainly feel like I've done my writing for the day.

Nevertheless, that writing doesn't exercise the same muscles as this writing. The encyclopedia article must be precise, economical, authoritative, with just a hint of a personal point of view to make it readable. That's almost nobody's natural writing voice. And so it takes extra work. This writing -- the blog -- is all about my writing voice and my personal point of view. The whole reason I come here every day, to post a lot or post just a little, is to learn more about my writing voice and my personal point of view. And the way to do that is to write freely, without obsessing over perfection.

There are two or three more entries due (to different publications) over the next few weeks. I'll do a lot of writing, and I'll come home tired and in the mood to be done with this quickly. But in all probability, that's when I'll need this space -- and its attendant writing challenges -- most.

Farewell to NaBloPoMo 2007

It may seem that not much changed here at UTC Headquarters during NaBloPoMo. I posted every day, just like I always do. There were stories about stuff the kids said and did. I blathered on about teaching and technology and process theology. I documented my travel and succumbed to the occasional meme.

But I was aware that some of those visiting me were also NaBloPoMoing, and I felt a kind of responsibility born of that kinship. I stole some of their ideas, they stole some of mine. I watched with interest as they struggled with the challenge of daily posting, and figured out for themselves how the process differs from their previous experience of blogging. I don't know if any of them will continue, as I did after my first NaBloPoMo in 2006, but I imagine many have discovered something new about themselves or their writing or their blogs, as I did (and still do).

There's still a big honkin' piece of unfinished business for the month, and that's the cache of unanswered questions. I admit -- many of those questions were daunting. I took a look at them each evening when I came home without a blog topic, and usually they seemed beyond my energy, time, or ability to think of something enlightening to say. (Behold the disadvantage of blogging after a full day's work; unless I had worked up a passion about some potential post during the day, often my highest ambition for the day's post was to get it written, up, and over with.)

But I appreciate my readers too much to let those questions wither away and die after their NaBloPoMo. So I hereby pledge to answer every single question, even the really hard ones, before 2007 is over.

But not tonight. Too tired, and too ready to get the weekend underway with TV on the DVR and learning to cable without a needle for holiday knitting. And so NaBloPoMo ends as it began.

Instead, let me ask you a question: If you did NaBloPoMo, what did you learn about yourself, your writing, or your blog -- if anything?