This year, the sixth annual BlogHer conference has a Writing Track, and as part of that track, there will be two Rooms of Your Own (ROYO). If you have been to Blogher before, then you know that ROYOs are the sessions that dig deeper into the track topics. What follows is my proposal for a ROYO at BlogHer’10 in New York this August. Because the successful ROYOs are determined by reader votes, I’d sure appreciate it if you went here and voted for Upping the Ante: Moving From Just Blogging to Creative Non-Fiction.
People blog for a raft of different reasons, and while it’s true that, as Elisa put it, for all of us “half of what is on the screen is words,” for some of us, the words are all that matter. We are the Writers. You can tell our blogs because no matter what the actual subject, we are using the techniques of literary writing–narrative, description, dialogue and so on–to create our posts. Our blogs are, in fact, exemplars of creative non-fiction, which David Harris-Gershon defines as “a form of non fiction writing based upon true events, but which places an emphasis on literary elements over the dry presentation of facts.”
Being a writer in any medium is a lonely business; it’s just you and the page out there on that limb of ideas and expression and feeling. Being a Writer in the blogging world is double-y so: the currency of blogging success–stats, hits, comments–are not as readily available to us as they are to, say, entrepreneurial bloggers. And the emphasis in the blogging world on entrepreneurship often serves to isolate us further.
So I’m proposing a Room of Your Own in which we get together–professional writers, those just starting out and everyone in between–to talk about the journey from “just blogging” to being a committed writer. Those of us who have made some steps on that ladder would share what we’ve learned, the good and the bad. Those who are just contemplating that first rung would come away with an idea of what’s ahead–and a group of other bloggers to network with. I envision this as a roundtable of sorts in which some of the things we might talk about are:
When you decide to up the ante…
- Does the purpose of blogging change or do you just start taking yourself more seriously?
- Does your writing process change: is writing a personal blog different from writing a non-fiction blog?
- What avenues have you found or are seeking for their creative non-fiction: writing gigs, contests, aggregators that pay, and so on.
- Finding topics: what’s the difference–is there any–between a good topic for a personal blog and a good topic for a non-fiction blog?
- Is it possible to be a Writer and an Entrepreneur?
- Why should you even want to up the ante?
- How does it affect your writing in other genres? Doesn’t blogging end up being just a waste of time?
- Your ideas? Questions? Concerns?
If this Room of Your Own is something you’d like to participate in, then you’ll need to vote for it before February 28.
Jane Gassner
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