Thursday, April 26, 2012

Living the Blogger Dream

Ok, -I'm- not living the blogger dream. But Jenny is.

Jenny is Jennifer Lawson, aka The Bloggess. Although when I first met her (in either 2006 or 2007), she had not yet morphed into the Bloggess, but was one of four writers on the blog MamaDrama for the Houston Chronicle.

Now when I say "met," I have not actually met Jenny in person, but we have read and commented on each other's blogs over the years, and are friends on Facebook (yes, me and like 4000 other people, but still. That's her personal Facebook page. There are 30-something -thousand- people who have liked her Bloggess Facebook page). For some reason, even though she has seen pictures of me, Jenny has a mental image in her head of me as Hawaiian (because of the name markira, even though that's not, y'know, Hawaiian).

Anyway, in June 2007 Jenny started her blog "The Bloggess" and it started out normally, in that she would get anywhere from no comments to 20 or so...and then her blog kind of exploded.

NOW, she is THE BLOGGESS and her blog gets somewhere between 2 and 3 MILLION hits a month. (To put this in perspective, I have had maybe 25,000 hits in the entire, what, six years I've had my blog.) She knows celebrities. She speaks at conferences. (Sometimes from the security of the bathroom.) She's been on CNN. (and Jenny, -did- you send your zombie apocalypse plan to the White House?)

And recently, after about 11 years in the making, she has published her first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

Which, she just found out, will be -debuting- at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. (Why can't I underline more than once? I want at least -five- underlines on that one. So, imagine I did that. And add exclamation points. And flashing arrows and stuff. And confetti.)

I am the tiniest bit envious of this**, but mostly I am thrilled to death for her and, weirdly, very proud of her. She's overcome enormous obstacles to achieve this (including working around her anxiety and depression issues).

** And I mean very tiny. Michael asked me I would like to be where she is, and I said probably not, since if I did really want it, I think I would at least be more dedicated to my own blog.

So anyway, Jenny's awesomeness is just overflowing everywhere and you should all buy her book. Go! Go now! ~mk

(Like, y'know, I'm gonna help her book sales so much. I'll be responsible for, oh, one. [Because my buying a copy counts, right? Right?])

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi mk, - My daughter came into my room when she heard the Buggles video playing. I told her that they were the first music video on MTV in the U.S.; she didn't know MTV ever played music videos...(sigh). I should have hung onto my buggles-style sunglasses.
We also checked out the Bloggess site, very funny lady. Katie really wants to check it out. She shares the same kind of quirkiness that your friend Jenny does. Also, you should be proud that you've increased your help in Jenny's book sales by at least 1 more!

I think your shoulder situation is probably just overextension, maybe? Hope so. And I'd really like to know how you make out with the more-is-less cable package. We are debating on whether to downsize our package also. There doesn't seem to be much worth watching these days.

Katie asked me who you were. I said "That girl from Maine with a blog that I've read for a few years". She rolled her eyes, because she knows about my Maine 'fetish'. I'm really considering a move there someday. (Not everyone there acts like the bad guys on North Woods Law, do they??) I don't expect you to remember, but you may recall that I worked nights in Providence, RI, and lived in Wareham, MA. Well, been outta work for over a year now. Living in New Bedford (so, so depressing!) I'm in school, hoping to get another degree, and (God-willing) heading out of Massachusetts. Obtaining a job in Maine would be a blessing. But, anyway.......thanx for not abandoning YOUR blog. Don't be surprised to see an occasional comment from Katie, too!

Take care....
Paul