by Jessica Ruane
As a child, I thought I would be the next great American author.
I dreamed of sitting on the balcony of the beach house and writing the next bestseller. I would take occasional breaks to read the letters of fans and readers. Oh, what a lovably clueless person I was.
When I was older, my family and friends bought me many books about writing to show their support.
Their innocent encouragement quickly became my source of disillusionment. The books were filled with horror stories, warnings and caveats about how my odds of becoming an author were not favourable.
I felt doomed to failure.
In college, my professors told me the same thing over and over. My teachers were talented wordsmiths, but they were also “failed” authors themselves.
My dream of living as a bohemian on the beach began to fade. The future didn’t look good.
Slowly, but surely, I gave up.
Blogging for babies
It’s hard to believe, but after graduating from college, I was only introduced to blogging and blogging that pays.
The “elite world” of creative writing saw blogging as an author’s desperate attempt to gain attention.
I was discouraged from blogging by snarky comments from my classmates regarding the dangers of democratizing publishing. I was content to write in my notebooks alone, despite being “below-par”.
Blog
The notebooks became old after a time. Part-time work was becoming tiresome. My M.F.A. seemed pointless. Seemed pointless.
Sometimes, I would find the courage to apply for jobs in writing posted on Craigslist.
One day, I heard back about a copywriting internship. I got hired for my very first job as an author!
The job required me to write press releases, web copy (nothing that I could not handle), and the dreaded B-Word blogs.
I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I went to college to write poetry and not blogs.
Then I realised a wonderful thing. All my creative writing abilities—poetry and short fiction, characterisation, and imagery, for example—could be directly applied to blog writing.
Why hadn’t anyone told me before?
I was so worried about learning how to blog that I did not even realise I already knew.
How do I incorporate poetry and prose into my blog?
Alliteration in headlines
Headlines must be clickable, irresistible, and catchy, but they don’t have to sound ugly. I can use my background in poetry to create headlines that are layered with meaning.
Alliteration is my favourite way to add flair to headlines. As an Example:
Your surfaces are superficial. I’ll use your slippery edges to move around.
Alliteration has been used to create rhythm in poetry lines (such as the one above). You can use alliteration to create rhythm (get it?) You can use alliteration (get it?) to help you create beautiful headlines.
Imagery enlivens dull topics.
You’ve probably heard this phrase before if you’ve taken a creative-writing class.
When writing about a dull topic, I find that imagery can be very helpful.
I recently had to blog about the census data feature of my company’s site. I wanted to convince people that my way of delivering the census data on our website was better than that of a government site.
Are you still awake? How do I spice this up?
I wrote: “[On a government’s website], searching for information about a particular neighborhood is like swimming in an ocean looking for a single drop of water.” You’re washed ashore on a deserted island, exhausted and shivering with blurred vision.
A few vivid images will give your copy a little personality if the subject is drab.
Writers’ workshops to toughen you
You will go through “workshopping” when you are taking a creative-writing class.
You read out your piece, and then everyone tells you what they dislike about it. You can only sit and listen as all your hard work gets savaged.
It’s a very masochistic thing to do. Watch a man work on a poem if you want to see him cry.
It may make you a worse writer, but it will improve your writing. Workshopping helps writers to put aside their egos in order to focus on improving. Because I have learned how to handle harsh criticism, I can take it in stride.
Does it make you happy?
Yes. I am happy that I decided to blog and produce web content instead of pursuing an M.F.A.
Not only am I earning more than my friends still in graduate school, but I also get to live my dream of becoming a writer.
Do You Think Blogging is the New Frontier of Writing? I can’t wait for your comments!
Jessica Ruane is a freelance writer from San Diego, CA. She covers everything from online dating and social media to cat behaviour.
