Detoxing From 31DBB Challenge: Part I

So I didn't complete Feel Good Week 2010. I have been too busy experiencing my 100th relapse into quarter-life crisis.

And all I can muster the energy to do is eat gummy sours and watch HGTV.

I blame the Sits Girls 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge, which wrapped up last week and left me with an uncomfortable case of creative constipation.

And a temporary sense of doom.

The challenge was based on a really positive premise: complete the 31 Day Better Blogger work book within a community of women with a focus on networking and supporting each other's blogs. It sounded really great, and for many women it was really great. Unfortunately the sign-up page should have noted to proceed with caution if you are not a stay-at-home mommy. Or Tipper Gore.

Here is some back story.

I am a frustrated writer-- a true, rebellious creative type, with a job-market unfriendly arts degree and numerous years under my belt working the graveyard shift at my glorified retail warehouse job.  In retrospect, my education has made me a better writer, and my job is perfect for writing, and for those things I am grateful. Nonetheless, I don't exactly feel like I have reached my potential.

A few years back, after half a decade of failed attempts to score a professional career, I also abandoned the notion of getting more practical education, mostly because I couldn't clearly decipher an area I would excel in that would require low-committal upgrading and would be a positive, financial alternative to my current work situation. So I took it as a sign and decided that I would pursue my passion, which is something that has always played a dominant role in my life, anyway, and that passion is writing.

At this point I had already done casual freelance work for local newspapers, and I had no idealisms regarding a legit writing career. Writing about shit you don't care about just for the sake of writing sucks geriatric elephant balls. And you can't even write things like "geriatric elephant balls". WHAT'S THE POINT? I knew I would be happier putting energy into my own writing, even if it were only as a hobby, instead of writing piece after piece of mindless dribble for a wage that is on par with a monthly welfare cheque. Bottomline, I discovered that my desire to write is based on expressing myself through written word, not simply the act of writing itself.

Since I had already been blogging for years, I made the decision to treat blogging with more seriousness and to learn whatever I could in hopes that maybe someday I could use my blog as an entrepreneurial starting point for making money through my writing. The Sits Girls 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge was a huge learning experience for me, and strangely, the work book took a back seat to the lessons I learned from participating within the community. Unfortunately, the lessons I learned sucked.

When it comes to the blogosphere, networking is everything. And networking is largely dependent on belonging to a niche. The ability to network within a niche is also key to scoring advertisers and actually making money.

What's your niche?

Good question.

It became apparent to me that the majority of the women in this challenge had blogs based on pretty narrow, stereotypically feminine niches: motherhood, parenting, cooking, organization, crafting, home decor, fitness, nutrition, fertility, infertility, house wifery, etc., and the fuel behind their momentum were each other. Due to this challenge, my Twitter account has become Female Domestication Cyber-Hell, and I have about 250 people I need to delete before I can free my account of tweets marketed towards 1950s housewives and resume reading communications that are actually relevant to me. Those of us whose blogs did not adhere to specific, stereotypically feminine topics were left floundering on the forum posting threads like, "Help! I can't figure out what niche I belong to!"

It has been hard to accept the now obvious reality that successful blogging isn't based on attributes like quality, originality, or even interesting writing. Just like the real world, selling a blog has more to do with whoring a commodity or commodifiable lifestyle, or ideally to do both in conjunction. However, what has truly disturbed me is what is commodifiable among these women in the blogosphere, which is predominantly house wifery.

Unfortunately, I've been putting a lot of weight on this blogging stuff. And I've gone from feeling like I was ascending up a very steep hill in a wheelchair to battling Mount Everest without legs. While riding a skate board. And at this point, I don't have a plan B.

Over the next week I will be discussing my detox from the 31 Day Better Blogger Challenge in more detail with Part II: Overcoming the Urge to Douche My Vagina, and Part III: Life After Rehab.