Allow me to make you a decorous proposition, my fellow bloggers, with a view to a marriage of minds. And if not a marriage, then let us at least gather on the same pages,despite our differences.
It’s quite lonely to blog on your own and you end up with you and your circle of like minded chaps and chapesses. Multiblogger plaforms are taking off at the moment in magazine formats.
The idea is to kind of focus on one area, but in fact you are free to write what you like. It’s no big deal so long as you contribute with one article of your own a week – around 500 words, with or without a pictures.
Basically, I – I would prefer Baron to do this – set up a page. Eveyone gets a log in. There is an editor involved so it is preferable that everything gets sent to him to be subbed and topped and tailed.
But if you are very precious, (in a good way of course), about word conservation, then you can just upload it.
Your articles can be prefaced by the title of your own blog and linked to it. Or you could just use your by-line.
You can also commission (no money involved) other people to write articles for you and give them a byline.
The point would be to generate interesting content.
I think we could make quite a splash and we could even ask the Guardian to do a story on it or link to it or something.
And it wouldn’t be so lonely or cliquey
Of course if someone else wants to set it up then I will follow as a contributor.
In this arrangement no one would be privileged.
We have some marvellous people who have agreed to contribute regularly and who like the idea.
How about you?
Phil/ISA
I like this idea
ReplyDeleteFirst post worked... I'll expand.
ReplyDeleteI like this idea.
I tried to set up my own feeble blog a while back and it seemed a lot of hassle for a very busy room. And who's listening? So much easier to post on GU website but also appreciate good voices/posts lost to the mods (have only been modded twice... both for saying accurate, if rude, things about Sunderland football club I believe)and they remain, increasingly so, "the man".
Similarly if you write on other folks' blogs you are expected to,consciously or otherwise, conform to their general house rules/style. These cn be even prissier/moddier than the GU (take your shoes off please, I'm queen bee here) or have dominant values not entirely in keeping with your own (e.g. the laddish/blokeish soh that finds sheep porn etc. hilarious). A magazine type format would allow for a sort of semi-detached middle way where you could have different voices/values expressed within in a generally united front.
I'm sure I could bash out 500 words of the art, wit n wisdom of pinkroom most weeks.
Happy to contribute if you get this started.
Count me in
OK Pinkroom. Careful with sensibilities. Let's be PC in the best sense of the word. We must be inclusive.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your patch?
pinkroom9@wordpress.com
ReplyDeleteNo, I mean what area de you want to write on? Something specific.
ReplyDeleteLike most of us about these parts my interest is in big venn diagram thingies like literature/poetry, politics/ideology and language/culture... it's the tensions/cross-overs/contradictions in and between those areas that fascinate me. If there are no takers I quite fancy sport/sport as metaphor. I loved your own Zizou piece for example and would be very happy to run with something like that (with poetry) for a while... in an inclusive, (broadly) pc way of course.
ReplyDeleteSport then.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great idea. I have seen it work many times. The whole is more than the sum of its planets.
ReplyDeletePlease join in Paul
ReplyDeleteHey Phil,
ReplyDeleteYes I'd like to be involved. I had a few questions... So you say you want it to be like a magazine format, are you imagining every section being updated on the same day as if it were a new issue? It might be better if it had a regular day for people to know when to call by. Also did you have specific areas you wanted to see covering, or a general theme for the whole?
I was sort of joking about the shoes, but I thought maybe I could sort of cover women's issues & social issues, well mostly just my own issues and I happen to be a woman, I don't propose to be representative. Plus I'm not meaning anything reactionary, just my musings really. But if it's needed I'm happy to muse under specified topics only.
Well what we might do to begin is a sort of rotating blog format and then go onto a magazine format if there is enough interest.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the arts would be a good place to start.
I could limit it to the arts I'd imagine. I already have some stored up rantings about Chick lit.
ReplyDeleteCool. Give me some time to get it ready. I'll keep everyone posted.
ReplyDelete