Blogs are for suckers

by Walt Williams

 

I don’t give a shit about your Chalupa. This is an ongoing joke with my wife and I about the banality of people who blog about ridiculous things. She was at lunch with a friend who actually stopped mid conversation when the food arrived so she could photograph and then post a picture of her Chalupa.

 

Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, social media is an oxymoron, separating us while we think it brings us together. We are the frogs in the slowly warming water not reacting to disappearing icebergs or glyphosate in our wine or our broken political, educational and prison systems. We know what’s wrong but we continue down the same path, change requires work, and we work too hard already. Right?

 

Life is hard. This we know, but life is also wonderful provided you are able to balance the hard with the beautiful. I am pathologically optimistic about life first because I spend my day helping the next generation try to figure their shit out and second because I have a family and community that keep natural dopamine flowing through my brain.

 

I love writing, been doing it since the Grace M. Davis High School Corinthian where I realized the power of the written word when the Aggies strung up a noose outside the newspaper office wanting to hang me because I wrote the line, “You can’t rope goats in topsiders”. Words have power. I have been writing for local papers for a while now, mostly about my Chalupa but sometimes about things that matter. I have a voice and now I have a platform. But I am old (51) and that platform is changing. I know little about blogs as shown in my recent email to my editor:

 

Thanks Annika,

Couple of questions:

Any guidelines for content since it’s linked to the PD? I write under the pen name John Moss when I’m feeling saucy and am hoping that the blog allows full sauce.

Also wondering about compensation. Will there be advertising linked to the blog? Are there sponsors I should suck up to? What can I do to get giant bags of cash into my pockets?

Also, also, am I OK to link previous stories to the blog like this, http://www.metrosantacruz.com/metro-santa-cruz/01.28.09/features-0904.html

Also. Also, also how much should I put on the blog? I have about 3467 stories ready but with the average attention span shrinking as I write this, I’m wondering if there’s a sweet spot for blog posts.

 

Thanks again, I have graduation this week then will start the summer of blog (blog summer? blogalicious? Waldogblog?)

 

 

Real writers write for money. Real writers make a living writing. Real writers spend their days toiling away at their craft, conveying their message to the world, documenting their experiences. Telling elaborate, creative stories that inspire and entertain. I am not a real writer.

 

I am a person who writes, I have opinions and some people seem to agree with those opinions. Should you care about my Chalupa? Up to you.

 

Blogs are for suckers.

-WW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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