Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Write like nobody is watching


When I went to bed last night, I had four followers. When I woke up this morning I had thirty. And yes, I did a little jumpy/flappy arm dance (it was a masterpiece). Everything was instantly made of kittens and sunshine and creamy custardy flan. My day was made perfect, and it was all thanks to Jenny Lawson, known to all as The Bloggess.

Yesterday after writing the epic tale of OWSR, I decided to indulge a random whim and send an email to Blog Jesus (not to be confused with Keanu Reeves Jesus or Jesus Lion). The email was as follows, with the subject line of I promise, if I wanted you to sell toilet paper for me I'd pay you:

Hi Jenny,
....or  The Bloggess, or My Ladyship the Princess of Germany (has that ever been settled officially?). Anyway, obviously I'm just another one of those peons who is probably just going to clog up your inbox and never be read. I apologize for not being Nathan Fillion. And yes I have just realized the whole first part of this email comes of as like, "ooh look at me I read your blog I bet NO ONE else ever does that and then quotes it back to you in an email." So yeah...sorry about that. 

Anywho I guess I am writing to you because you are awesome, and I kinda sorta maybe wanted you to possibly read my blog if you had a chance. Obviously I don't want you to promote it or anything because 1) who do I think I am? and 2) I've only posted four things so far, which is not much to promote. I just want to see if you think I'm funny at all I suppose. Plus it'd just be really super cool. I know you have to get these kinds of emails literally all the time, in fact mine is probably sandwiched between two shockingly identical ones. However, I figured what do I have to lose? 

But as an anxiety-ridden nineteen year old currently on jury duty while all her friends are at the beach, more disappointment would kind of suck. Ooh, guilt trip! That was uncalled for. So here's the link. Do with it what you will, oh mighty deity of blogging. 

So yeah, it was long, desperate and obviously trying too hard, but I actually managed to send it. And she read it. And clicked the link. And then read that too. And THEN tweeted my blog.

So now here you are. And about twenty seconds after I felt that first sense of elation, I realized that people will actually be reading things I write. AND THAT IS TERRIFYING.

But as it turns out, this was one of the rare times when The Crazy actually got overruled. Sure, I could freak out. I could panic about what I was going to write next, how quickly I would manage to lose all these new followers, or how I would probably become so powerfully uninteresting from now on that the Bloggess would issue a tweet-traction and then find out where I live and mail me a picture of herself looking disapproving. Like this pumpkin.
Disapproving pumpkin, why must you hurt me so? 

However, sane Bailey must be working out, because even though she is one-nineteenth the size of The Crazy she managed to muscle her way through to the forefront. And so, I’m not going to freak out. I’m just going to keep writing and hope you still find it interesting.

And at some point I’m going to figure out how to reply to comments, because I totally have some now (repeats flailing dance).

Sorry to interrupt with this non-humorous post, but I couldn’t just continue on without acknowledging my new readers or the reason for them. So if you still think I’m worth the shot, tune in tomorrow to find out when I found out a terrible truth about myself: that I am racist against blankets. 

3 comments:

  1. so now I am an avid follower, and yes, the all mighty and powerful Bloggess led me to you but make no mistake here, she would not have kept me here had I not liked what YOU wrote. don't underestimate yourself because kiddo (and yes, I can call you that because I am 40 and have a daughter who is 17), you can write! good luck but somehow, I don't think you'll need it....

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  2. I can relate to this post in so many ways. I, too, am a new blogger (started mine May this year). I follow The Bloggess, well, because she is awesome, so when she tweeted your blog, I followed. I liked what I read, so I joined.

    When I got my first group of GFC followers, I too did a happy dance. Every day my poor b/f has to hear me get all excited about the 5 new page views I had today, what countries they were from and which sites they came from.

    And don't worry about whether the ppl here now will stay or not. Do what you do and those who resonate with that will stay, they'll invite others who will resonate, and so on and so on.

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  3. Hey, do what you do. People will stay or they won't. Whatever. BTW, I did a happy dance when I finally broke double digit followers just this week. 10!! Woo-Hoo!! Yep, I'm amused by the little things...

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