Thursday, December 10, 2009

Split Directives

Quite honestly, if I want to have any inkling of what's going on in the outside world, I'm going to either turn on CNN or pick up the newspaper. I am probably not going to turn to a blog by a college student that offers me bits and pieces in secondhand form.

Now, I'm not knocking my fellow collegiate bloggers. Really, I'm not. And I'm all for collaboration. I mean, just look at TTB. That's a wonderful collaboration between me and my sister. [And if my cousin sweet talks us a little bit and updates a little more often, we might let him have a slice of the proverbial pie - bad pun fully and completely intended]

A personal blog - and I define person in this case as something that has your name to it, that is instinctively and inherently yours - should be about you, because you feel that your life is either so wonderful that everybody needs to pay attention, or so dreadfully boring and mundane that people are going to get laughs when you share that you almost fell down the stairs while trying to ogle the guy on the third floor and didn't really watch where you were going. Which, is a completely hypothetical situation because the guy that I like doesn't live in the same building as me.

A personal blog really shouldn't regurgitate news unless it is something you really feel passionate about or that has some immediate impact on your life.

And, hot damn, if I had my name scrawled across the top of the page, I'd love to have my own staff of writers to go along with it.

But, in a way, that would defeat the purpose of it being a personal blog. And it would be kind of creepy, because, honestly, they would probably have to live with me to understand the sort of shit that happens in my day, because while it's probably normal and completely uninteresting to you people, I find it somewhat hilarious some days, simply because that's the way that I am.

I guess the point I'm attempting to badly articulate [it's late, I'm procrastinating on my lab report] is that if it's going to be a collaboration, give it a collaborative name, at least. Give it a name that doesn't single anybody out, even if you are the administrator [seriously, who does that unless you're actually getting paid to maintain it, and then yeah, it makes sense - which, by the way, where's somebody handing me a paycheck for writing a certain amount of times per week?] so that it gives a feeling of unity. It's all well and good to be at the top of the proverbial food chain, but really....If you put your name on it, you might as well just own up to it.

Which, by no means, is insinuating that I'm the queen of blogging.

I have neither hit a hundred posts nor been at this for a year, but I think that my writing speaks for itself. I write well, I keep it real and down-to-earth [do you expect me to be anywhere else, really? It's finals, people] and you can find a number of different types of writing if you look through the older posts - memories, family, embarrassing moments, bits of fiction [from my novel or otherwise] including a mini-series creation-thing that was spawned because I might as well have married Murphy because I keep getting all his luck. Not quite the same as marrying for money [which I don't think I could do if I tried because, frankly my dear, I just don't give a damn about that kind of stuff] but it's pretty easy to see where good ol' Murph and I stand.

Which reminds me that my Focus now shares the same name. Coincidence? I think not.

The point with what you can find on my blog is simple. You can find me. You can find Molly Louise in each and every one of those posts, and I don't have to cite where I found them since they come from myself. These are little extensions of myself. Including the title. Which, if some of you aren't familiar with your astrological sign (Zodiac), then you might be a little confused.

My birthday is November 25. My astrological sign is a Sagittarius - a centaur. A centaur is a half-man, half-horse...thing [I'm at a loss for how to describe it after that] and is usually depicted in mid-stride with a bow. The Sagittarius has its own constellation in the sky [just like Scorpio and the Big Dipper (well aware the latter one is not an astrological sign, but damn, wouldn't that be cool if it was?)] and, personality wise, people who are under the Sagittarius are said to have certain traits.

One of them is "wandering feet."

I love to travel. Absolutely adore it. That's partly why I'm complete ecstatic to be going to Wales next Fall, and why I was absolutely giddy over the summer with traveling to Massachusetts. I like being in new places and exploring them. Coming from a tourist town, you'd think I wouldn't be all that happy to be doing the tourist-thing, but I really do have a penchant for looking out of the window of plane, bus or car [haven't ridden by train yet, but never fear, I will rectify that sometime soon, hopefully] and wondering Where the hell am I? It's a good feeling. Which I am now going to modify with this: That feeling is absolutely fabulous as long as you have even an inkling of where your destination is. Being completely lost, while that's probably an adrenaline rush of sorts, is not conducive for happy traveling. Neither is being stuck in the Philadelphia airport for twenty-one hours, but I digress at this point, as usual.

The Wandering Sagittarius - That's me. And in this blog so aptly named, you will find bits and pieces [occasionally whole chunks] of me. I don't have a team of writers of writers at my disposal, I'm definitely not getting paid for this, and I'm not doing this for fame and fortune.

And let me point this out right now.

I do not write for fame and fortune.

I write because I love to, and I share because I want to bring other people the joy that writing brings me. My dream is not to be a bestselling author because of the royalty fees, but because I want to walk into a bookstore [specifically a Barnes&Noble], grab myself some Starbucks coffee, and wander through the shelves until I can find my book sitting on the shelf. That is what I want. Anything after that is extraneous.

I write with my sister over at TTB because we both like to write, and we like to share one part of all that ties our family together - baking. Love and baking.

The Wandering Sagittarius [the blog] exists to give a perspective. A unique, college-stressed, science-major perspective on life, love, family, and anything and everything in between. Occasionally the lines get crossed, blurred, and suddenly sometimes disappear. In the end, everything turns out, sometimes not nicely, exactly, but that's life.

So, with something this attached to me, you're not going to hear news from CNN unless it impacts the person currently tapping away on the keyboard while she should be doing her formal chem lab report. And because I'm kind of computer stupid in a way, if I want you to take a look at something, I'll hand you a link to direct your attention.

Bottom line. Group effort = Group name. Even if you're the one in "charge" and you did "most of the work" it's still a group. You still collaborated. Give credit where credit is due, but please, don't name it after yourself if you get regular advice and other things from other sources. That's just tacky. And by regular I mean you have a list of contributors and they have dashes next to their name with what they provide your blog with.

But, Louise. Your sister appears regularly in your blog. Yeah, but she has her own [which I appear in, as well] but that's from her point of view and with her unique writing style. Mine is from my point of view, and my unique writing style. Occasionally, we blend and write things together. Or, she'll write something and I'll write something in return.

And yes, I'm well aware that this way of doing things does not work for everyone. Everyone has their own ideas on how to run a blog, and how they want it laid out, and what they want in it, but...think for a minute.

Original grass to chew or regurgitated cud to suck on?

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"The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't."

-Joseph L. Mankiewicz