Branded

Back in the States, when I had finished my first two years of college, Ozarks Technical Community College was kind enough to present me with an Associate of Arts.  Two weeks after graduation I moved in with my parents, thinking I would get my Bachelor of Arts at Toledo University, live closer to my parents, and spend the rest of my days writing in Ohio.

Eight months later I realized why I had left Ohio to begin with, and moved back to my beloved Missouri to look into a Bachelor of Arts at what was then Southwest Missouri State University (and what is now Missouri State University).  When I was sitting in the advisor’s office I was presented with three courses of study:

• Bachelor of Arts in Literature
• Bachelor of Arts in Writing
• Bachelor of Science in Education

The second one was prep for journalism, creative writing, teaching at the adult level, or law.  The third one was prep for teaching at any level.  The first one, so far, has been a bit useless in the “real” world, from personal experience.  You can guess by now which one I picked.

Oh, I had my reasons.  I didn’t trust writing teachers at the beginning--I wanted to learn to write from the masters.  I was double-majoring in history and literature at first because they seemed to pair well, and both were a passion.  I knew a lot of literature from my Associate’s program and from independent study.  And that last option up there involved more psych courses than English courses.

Back then, if anyone would have had foresight, they would have added another:

• Bachelor of Science in Marketing

I probably would have turned that down, too.

*****

I have a pretty unhealthy addiction right now to the social networks due to the amount of marketing I’m “supposed” to do of my talents, writing or otherwise.  The newest trend displays an alarming blurring of the lines between “friendship” and “read my stuff, Friend/Follower 141.”  I have enough blogs and feeds on my Google Reader to choke a horse, and most days I read one of them.  (To be fair, I do read other blogs, but they don’t post every day.)  I don’t read daily one out of a sense of duty.  I read it because the writer is entertaining.

As I said, there are others that are entertaining, but they don’t blog every day.

I honestly couldn’t tell you if I’m an entertaining writer; I’m of the same belief as Murphy Jones in the movie “Murphy’s Romance” when it comes to my writing (“Sure I like myself.  I just don’t expect it to be contagious”) or Liz Gilbert from “Eat Pray Love” (“I’m not everyone’s cup of tea”).  I don’t get many comments, and even fewer compliments.  (Not fishing.  Just stating fact.)  All I know is this:  I write the kind of stuff I want to read.  If you write stuff that serves to impress the trend or to preach intellectual, you’re probably not going to have me for a reader very long.  If you write with no sense of humor, I won’t stick around, either.  I’m just here chronicling my journey.  I love it when others do too, and have fun with it.

But when it comes to selling--and here’s where I’ll sink--I stink.  When it comes to the captions for the blog on the social networks, I throw up a little in my mouth trying to “sell” my blog.  Do I realize, others say, that that revulsion will be my end?  Yes.  I’m constantly working on how to get around it.  I make my blog a character I talk to.  I’m glib about it.

But if I’m good at marketing, then why did I become a writer?  Marketing would pay better, and would apply to so much more than just writing.

Here’s the biggest point that I can’t get past--if everyone is clamoring to be “read” and to “sell” themselves, instead of writing authentically to connect, then don’t we all start sounding alike?  A million young voices, screamin’ out their words...maybe someday those words will be heard, sings John Mellencamp in “Check It Out.”  It strikes me that if I’m trying to be read, my goal is wrong.  I’m trying to connect.  I’m not going to connect with people who don’t read.  I’m not going to connect to people who don’t like my kind of writing.  I’m not going to connect with people who resent the hell out of having to read me because they know me, but wouldn’t read my writing otherwise.  That’s just the truth.  My objective isn’t to sell my voice to those who don’t want it.  My objective is to put the light on the basket for those who want it to find.

That’s the challenge.  Not the bending of my voice, but the finding of like voices.

*****

Ah, the social networks.  Everyone’s burnt out on them.  Moi, aussi.

If you were to look at me as a brand, a week ago, you would have seen City Girl, a tame Carrie Bradshaw without the shoe obsession.  It was my weapon against the folks who kept breaking my heart with how great their husband/wife/kids were, when I desperately wanted those things.  “But you have the City!” my sis-in-love told me, so I guess that defined me.  In the movie “Out of Africa” Isak Dinesen was speaking with her lover, Denys Finch-Hatten, about her inability to have children, she said, “The farm.  That’s what I am now.”

I had an apartment in San Francisco, at the foot of the seven hills.

Now, I don’t.  No petty impressions left.  Just a writer, living in North San Diego County.  I have no wonderful spouse or kids.  I have no Golden Gate Bridge.

My branding clock is up.  This brand is bland to eyes of social networking trends.  I wish I could mourn it.  But I’m either too helpless or too liberated by my own challenging situation to care.  Nothing, and I mean nothing sets the record straight on what’s important like being reduced to penniless.

Remarkably, three social networks haven’t worn out their welcome.  Meetup, through hundreds of people that I mentored and wrote with this year, brought me two writing partners (one in my old neighborhood and one in Leeds, England) who have restored my faith in communities of artists.  Google Reader brings me a daily mentor of baseball and botany.  And GoodReads introduces me to people who understand why I pick up the books that I do, even a chance to swap thoughts about those books (bless you, Meredith).  In small doses, I believe in connection.  I can’t help but believe in connection.

I’ll leave the trending “image” to the dancing hamsters and Old Spice men.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing and re-reading this post.

(P.S. - The photo comes from the “brand” I got from repeatedly tripping over the trailer hitch on the UHaul during the transition.  Some fools never learn.)