Luckily, I don’t mean that *literally*
Let’s be honest, I would love it if people came to my blog in droves to read my anecdotes and click on my links and somehow provide revenue such that I could wake up when I wanted and write this blog and stuff animals and make hats and dance the night away every night. So, I read other blogs to try and glean what it is that endears me to them. I read articles about how to make a blog “successful.” I’ve discovered that there is a lot of good information out there, most of which is in direct conflict with all the other good information out there.
There have been many things that have told me that I should look for what I am getting out of the blogs I read. What are they providing to me? In turn, what can I provide to readers? Many of my favorites are written by super pulled-together women who are stylish and successful and so happy and positive that they just glow. Part of me feels like no one can really be that pulled together and happy and positive and glowing all the time. The other part of me yearns to be that pulled together, successful, happy, positive, glowing woman! The one with all the answers, or at least answers that work for me.
However, I know deep down that while I could probably do that, and I could probably make people believe that about me, it wouldn’t be genuine. It would also be a hell of a lot of work. Not in the 9-5 sort of way, but in the 24-hours-a-day sort of way that exhausts one to their core. If I’m being really honest, that is not what I want my blog to be. I am willing to put work into it, but I don’t want it to suck my life force until I am a withered shell. I mean, really, no one wants to read the blog of a withered shell.
Luckily, no matter what else all those articles say, they all say to be yourself. While I could do all those things mentioned above, and emulate one of those successful, happy, positive, yadda, yadda ladies and become a withered shell, each of those ladies is already doing it. I could try, but since each of those ladies with each of those blogs already have their successful blog, what would be the point in just trying to be a cookie cutter version, albeit a withered one? There really wouldn’t be one. I might whine and groan a lot, and have to take a variety of pills to function every day, but overall I know I am pretty damn awesome. I sometimes have a hard time accepting it, much less projecting it out there for the world, but still I know it. I know that if I’m just the best version of myself, nothing but good can come of it.
A while back, my mother-in-law was in town for a writing conference. She said one of her learnings was, “Fuck Hemingway.” When she said that, I couldn’t help but recall my experiences trying to read some Hemingway, and I was all, “Yeah! Fuck that guy!” Then, when she explained, I was still all, “fuck that guy,” but in a different way. Basically, all these writers want to be the next Hemingway. The thing is, it’s already been done. By Hemingway. You can try to be him, to write like him, but you will never be him. And why would you want to be? He’s already done it, and really no one can be Ernest Hemingway in quite the same way that Ernest Hemingway can. So, instead of trying to do something that’s already been done, and trying to be this guy, just be you. In this case, the reference was to writers, but it really applies to everyone, no matter what your craft. There is no sense in trying to be someone else, since that someone else has already done it. So, be yourself. No one else can do that, and certainly not as well as you can.
So, my advice to you, advice that will surely make you more fabulous: Fuck Hemingway.
xoxox
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