It's a blog eat blog world
This morning was quite the emotional rollercoaster for me, and I'm going to tell you all about it. I was checking out bbc news, and there I saw it. 5 words. 5 words that could change my life. Well, maybe 5.5, depending on how you feel about hyphens...but I digress. As I was saying, there it was, popping out at me from my computer screen: "Blogger up for non-fiction award" My head was spinning! Could this blogger be me?! Little ol' me?! Only a couple weeks with a blog and I've already made it big! Could my limited number of posts, filled with mundane observations and commentary have won the hearts of the masses?! Soon, I would be a celebrity... cafeatnight.blogspot.com would be seen everywhere: t-shirts, newspapers, away messages, wikipedia (not bumper stickers though, those are just tacky). Oh, the places I would go, the people I would meet... The world was calling me and I had no interest in fighting the urge to reply, "Yes world! It is I, your humble blogger, and I will blog 'til I can't blog anymore!" The sparks were flying in my imagination. No, scratch that. The sparks were soaring in my imagination.
I decided to contain myself and proceeded to read past the headline. I froze. Lost all color in my face. Utter shock overcame me. The header read, "An anonymous blog by a young woman in war-torn Iraq has been longlisted for BBC Four's Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction." "Well, that doesn't sound right," I thought to myself. A young woman? Sure I am. In war-torn Iraq? Not so much. Could this be a mistake? The oversight of a negligent journalist perhaps? And then it hit me, hit me like rock, like a rock aimed from a slingshot, aimed straight at my face. I was not the blogger this headline spoke of...I never was. I was crushed. My dream stolen from right under me. Visions of exotic travels to Tokyo, Paris, Milan, and Grand Rapids escaped me as quickly as they came. If this were a Shakespeare tragedy, right about now is when King Lear would probably roar, "HOWWWL! HOWWWL!" And howl I did...
Twenty-seven minutes and forty-one seconds later I had a realization, an epiphany if you will (which I like to think of as a mega-realization): I don't need a silly Samuel Johnson Prize. I don't even know who Samuel Johnson is. All I need is a keyboard and you, my loyal readers, all 3 of you...give or take ;-)
I decided to contain myself and proceeded to read past the headline. I froze. Lost all color in my face. Utter shock overcame me. The header read, "An anonymous blog by a young woman in war-torn Iraq has been longlisted for BBC Four's Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction." "Well, that doesn't sound right," I thought to myself. A young woman? Sure I am. In war-torn Iraq? Not so much. Could this be a mistake? The oversight of a negligent journalist perhaps? And then it hit me, hit me like rock, like a rock aimed from a slingshot, aimed straight at my face. I was not the blogger this headline spoke of...I never was. I was crushed. My dream stolen from right under me. Visions of exotic travels to Tokyo, Paris, Milan, and Grand Rapids escaped me as quickly as they came. If this were a Shakespeare tragedy, right about now is when King Lear would probably roar, "HOWWWL! HOWWWL!" And howl I did...
Twenty-seven minutes and forty-one seconds later I had a realization, an epiphany if you will (which I like to think of as a mega-realization): I don't need a silly Samuel Johnson Prize. I don't even know who Samuel Johnson is. All I need is a keyboard and you, my loyal readers, all 3 of you...give or take ;-)
posted by Daphna at 10:30 AM
1 Comments:
"Next only to William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson is perhaps the most quoted of English writers. The latter part of the eighteenth century is often (in English-speaking countries, of course) called, simply, the Age of Johnson."
Now you know.
AK
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