To Blog or Not to Blog? That is Not the Question in the Web 2.0 World

Just back from this morning's Washington Independent Writers Fiction Seminar panel on writers's blogs--- with fiction writer and journalist Wendi Kaufman (The Happy Booker), novelist Leslie Pietrzyk (Work-in-Progress), freelancer and improv artist Shawn Westfall, blogger for Dcist.com, and poet Deborah Ager of 32 Poems. I'd had no idea that Wendi got the idea to start her blog (one of the first and best lit-blogs out there, by the way) after her eight year-old son launched one for Pokemon characters. And wow, Deborah is a wordpress wizard! But to the point:

To blog or not to blog, I repeat, that is not the question. A blog, supposedly, is a web (on-line) log, or diary or journal. I say no, it's anything you want it to be. Call it a newsletter. Or take a newsletter and call that a blog. It could be an on-line magazine column. Updated once a year. Updated eight times a day. Longish personal essays, whole books, pictures with or without commentary, or, say, nothing but lists of links to kitty videos on Youtube. Did I mention videos of people crying while eating? Mustaches of the 19th century! Some blogs invite comments, others (such as this one) do not (though if you want to send me an e-mail, click here). It's the Wild Get Out of Dodge West. So what I'm saying is, if you're on-line in any way, you might as well accept it, it's a Web 2.0 world, morphing at warp speed--- and you might as well consider what you do blogging. For lack of a better word. We do not have an adequate vocabulary for any of this. More anon...specifically:

---->The main misconception about "blogs"
----> Making time for blogging (why and how) and my Bushman (and I do not mean the W) goes to Whole Foods analogy.
---->The perplexing problem with print-outs of blog posts.
---->Then, Maximilian galore, new pix & more.


---->To view the archive of Madam Mayo on blogging, click here

Blogonomics

So, I'm thinking a lot about blogs as a literary genre. First because as a blogger and a writer, this interests me, and second because I'm gearing up for the panel on this very subject at the Washington Independent Writers All-Day Fiction Seminar on February 9th. One inevitable question: Is there money in it? Some blogs, such as Beatrice, Bookslut, and The Millions, sell ads--- in fact, check out the blogad for the new paperback edition of my book, Miraculous Air, on those very blogs. But some bloggers actually get paid to blog--- a salary or a fee, as for an other freelance writing. For example, Shawn Westfall, who will be participating on the WIW panel, blogs on the DC literary scene for DCist. Over at World Hum, an outstanding cornucopia of a travel writing blog, the founding writers sold the whole package to the Travel Channel and now they get paid to blog. Here's a fascinating article on the economics of writing for blogs, in the Columbia Journalism Review. More anon.

Improv Party

Washington DC's improv king, Shawn Westfall, will bring it to your living room! He writes:

My new company, Improv Comedy Delivered, is founded on the notion that the collaborative art of improvisational comedy is easy to learn, fun to do and therefore can also fuel a unique, unforgettable party or event experience.

Madam Mayo has not (yet) hosted an improv party, but she has taken his bodaciously fun improv workshop. Here's what she had to say about it. More anon.

DCist or, Zip, Zop

Yours Truly is interviewed today in the DCist--- about the DC literary community; (what is the literary community?); Candida's World of Books; Richard Peabody; Miraculous Air & more--- by Shawn Westfall. (Read about Westfall's very cool improv workshop here and here.) More anon.