Saturday, September 12, 2009

I Used to Be... A Blogger!!!

Once upon a time (long ago) I used to post regularly - daily - here on The F.U. And then I got a full-time job. A job that pays in dollars rather than hits and links. A job that has nothing to do with either writing or feminism. And this life, my blogging life, faded away - making way for the life that pays the bills.

But the need to pay the bills wasn't the only reason I stopped writing. I stopped writing because I became confused about who I was writing for, and who I should be writing to.

You see, as a blogger, I found I was mainly 'preaching to the choir' or fighting trolls. Both are fun, really, in their own ways - but they were things I was doing for myself. And right now it seems as though perhaps we should be trying to communicate, and to sway, those in our country who are still undecided about many of the issues facing our nation right now. About health care. About war. About elections, corporations, and free speech. About torture and rendition. About what is good, and what it means - or should mean - to be American.

Months have passed since my last post, and I'm no closer to an answer. How do we reach an audience that might be convinced by our arguments, and how do we change people's minds if we feel the issues we care about are being misrepresented and misunderstood? Should we all be writing op-eds for our local papers, explaining why we believe universal health care will help our nation? Should we continue to write for our blogs, in the hopes of rallying the troops? Should our language be conciliatory or a call-to-arms?

As I try to decide what's next for me, and for The Feminist Underground, these are the questions that are still unresolved. While I miss the community I had as a writer for The Feminist Underground, it feels like community is no longer enough. We need to be speaking to one another, of course, but who else should we be speaking to -and how do we reach them?

Thursday, September 3, 2009