To be blunt, I am a straight up coward in big rooms with many people. After I got the confidence burnt out of me in college, I would walk into networking events in my chosen career path of higher education and be at a complete loss for words and a complete loss of desire to try. Everyone knew everyone else, and since I didn’t go to the “right” grad program or wasn’t in a hiring capacity, no one wanted to talk to me. Accordingly, I started avoiding networking events and conferences in my field, and labeled myself an introvert. Continue reading
Category: writing (Page 2 of 3)
Flickr image by user alexkerhead
When I was trying to start working out more, a friend told me that the key to beating laziness was to work out everyday during an extremely busy week. That would provide the motivation I needed to do it everyday regardless.
Much like I had with working out, I have fallen off the wagon writing wise. I have let work consume me to the fact that I become stymied writing wise when I get home every night. Sure, you occasionally get uber-prolific posts like my gay marriage and hockey post and my “blogging is writing” manifesto, but nothing consistent. And frankly, it’s tanked the writing career I was developing. Continue reading
I spent time last weekend polishing off a blog post I had been considering for a while – one that took a lot of research, having my mother look through a box of books at home, time on LexisNexis. It was a story not many had touched, and one I wanted to be the one to tell.
I had just two paragraphs left to write on Sunday night, but had a long week at work ahead of me, so decided to head to bed. I would polish the rest of it off on the train in the morning.
As I went to bed, President Obama announced that United States forces had killed Osama Bin Laden. No matter what you thought of the action, you had to acknowledge that it was a giant story, a monumental event, and one that deeply affected many people. It also changed a news cycle. Newspaper journalists and editors on Twitter were stating that they literally tearing up front pages of their Monday morning editions, moving other stories to other days or killing them all together.
It wasn’t just physical newspaper layouts that the event changed. It changed what an aware and smart online writer could post on Monday. I read a comment on Twitter that said, “If you’re Tweeting or posting about anything unrelated right now, you’ll come across looking stupid.”
To be honest, I’m an escapist. When big events happen, I internalize silently, and then look for something else to pay attention to. So as much as I was tempted to dive into the post I was working on, finish it off, and post it Monday or Tuesday morning, I knew two things:
1) No one would pay attention to it.
2) I could come across as being insensitive, since many equate escapism with insensitivity.
So, I put the blog post on hold. I’ll post it this week, barring unforeseen circumstances.
But it brought up a bigger issue that I think writers within this still-new sphere of independent sports writing might struggle with. How do you respond to world events – the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, the Bin Laden death – without appearing insensitive?
- Do you write about the intersection of the event and sports – like the perfect illustration of the power of smartphones and social media spreading important news last Sunday night during the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game?
- Do you just go silent for a bit, because you know your readers may be focused elsewhere?
- Or do you go forward with what you planned to write and post, because it’s what keeps you grounded?
As a sports writer, is how you react to a major event much bigger than sports tied to how you view your writing? Do you write to express your own feelings, to tell a story, or as something fun? Do you write for other’s eyes, or just feel lucky that other’s may want to read at the end of the day? How you view the desired outcome of your writing will guide on how you handle writing and posting in the days following a giant world event.
However you decide to proceed is a personal choice, with no right or wrong answer. But in order to gain credibility as an independent sports writer, showing consideration of your reader’s attentions during an emotional time without being exploitative, is always the best direction.
Last week on Twitter, I witnessed a rather heated back and forth that manifested itself into one New England sports blogger saying to another, “you give bloggers a bad name.” The statement caused me pause.
I paused because I don’t believe that anyone is a blogger, especially here in April of 2011. We are all writers – even if you are on Blogspot writing grammatically incorrect ramblings about how much you hate the Montreal Canadiens, or on your own domain providing serious and detailed coverage of an emerging sport such as lacrosse. Everyone is writing. Why must we qualify the action by the medium in which it is taking place?
Writing independently of established media outlets and starting your own means to showcase your writing is nothing new. In the mid 1980s, my father and uncle saved money and created an independent music magazine called Rochester Rox. The first and only issue’s cover story was my Aunt Linda’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s influence on current rock music and his most recent concert in Rochester. Sure, she was a tad biased because I think she had a crush on him, but nevertheless. My father desired an outlet for his music writing, but couldn’t find one suitable. Faced with the same desire today, he would open a WordPress account and start writing within ten minutes. But back in 1985, he had to save up money, find a printing press and lay the whole thing out via an X-acto knife and our Sears electric typewriter.
Yes, Rochester Rox only lasted an issue. Dad and Uncle Rich were giving it away for free, and that lone House of Guitars (hop hop, hop hop – a joke all Rochestarians know well) ad didn’t pay all of their expenses. But would anyone describe what my father, uncle and aunt was doing was, “independent music magazining?” No. They were writing.
Thus why am I described as a blogger at times? Why does being a blogger have such a negative connotation? In 2003, just like my father 18 years before me, I sought a venue for my writing and none existed. Thus I started this sports blog. I always fancied myself a writer without a home, not a blogger. I wanted to use a blog – a website – to show what I could do, and hope that someone down the line would want to hire me to write.
Communication mediums have always changed over time. Cave paintings were replaced by books, which were supplemented with newspapers, which were supplemented by magazines, which were complimented with the radio, which evolved into television, all of which are currently being challenged by websites and social media. Blogs are a part of that evolution. But the blog is the noun, not the verb. Writing is writing, and while some writing still ends up on newsprint, other writing ends up online. Some of that online writing ends up on the sites of traditional media sources, while others end up on independent sites – many of which qualify as web logs, or blogs.
Like in any field, there are those who do their job well and those who do their job poorly. In any artistic pursuit, there are those who don’t get a point-of-view of the artist, or those who don’t agree with a style or presentation. Writing is no different. Some sports writers who use blogs as an outlet are awful. They spew rumors. They disparage other fans. They stalk athletes. In the case of Bleacher Report, they crassly build on a natural disaster to relate it to Japanese sports. Those are examples of bad writing. But bad sports writing isn’t limited to blogs. Look at the newspaper columnist who last week claimed the comatose San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally attacked by LA Dodgers fans “deserved it.” He is a writer, albeit a bad one. His medium was a newspaper, not a website. Bad writing, like good writing, can be found everywhere, and is not limited to the blog medium.
And some sports writers will choose to go about their craft in a different way than others. There are those among us who write game recaps and feature stories. There are others who tell personal stories about the sports they love. There are others who create humorous Photoshops to illustrate tall tales that are rooted in a factual basis. You don’t have to like the style they use, just, but you have to respect that they are creating. We are all writing. We all sought an independent outlet for writing. But unlike years past, there is a far easier way to find such an outlet.
I write because I couldn’t imagine my life without the written word. I write what I want to read myself. I write because I love it. If someone else is motivated to write, I can’t ever disparage them, even if I may personally disagree with their tone, methods or point of view. We share a commonality, no matter how grammatically incorrect or how strange that writing may be. No one gives anyone else a bad name as long as our desire to communicate via the written word is genuine.
A few days ago, Zac from Delayed Offsides wrote about his first season covering college hockey for the Something’s Bruin/Sieves The Day group. Among his excellent musings, he spoke about reporting on hockey from the view of someone who had played previously, which he has. Zac mentioned that as a hockey player himself, he relies less on stats, and more about watching the plays develop. Continue reading