Literary Safari

This is a short one. I’m guest blogging at Marc Aronson’s School Library Journal blog, “Nonfiction Matters” today. Check out my post “Great Resources on Islam. and on the Experience of Being a Young Muslim in America” here.

Take heart, those of you who feel guilty about not blogging enough or at too leisurely a pace. Per a recent NYT article titled “Blogging at Snail’s Pace,”  there’s a “small, quirky movement” out there called slow blogging:

… inspired by the slow food movement, which says that fast food is destroying local traditions and healthy eating habits. Slow food advocates, like the chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., believe that food should be local, organic and seasonal; slow bloggers believe that news-driven blogs like TechCrunch and Gawker are the equivalent of fast food restaurants — great for occasional consumption, but not enough to guarantee human sustenance over the longer haul.

It’s official. I am a slow blogger. The fact that it has taken me a whole week to sit down and even try to write about last week’s events in Mumbai is proof, if nothing else.

Like everyone else I know, I’ve been following the news about the Mumbai blasts last week constantly, keeping track of essays, listening to podcasts, and reading analyses [ [here» ... here» ... here» ... here» ... here»]. I’m repeatedly wowed by all the writers out there who have managed to convey their thoughts and emotions so eloquently both during and in the days since the events.

So far, I haven’t been able to do it.

I ran into a neighbor in the elevator earlier today. “I’ve been thinking about you,” Libby said. “I was wondering whether you have any family in Mumbai and I went onto your blog to see whether you had written anything about it.”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied. “It’s just taking me a while to absorb it all.” I felt embarrassed, like I was somewhat less of a writer for not having put pen to paper right away … or, at the very least, participated in the phenomenon of self-button publishing and citizen journalism via Twitter, Facebook, and the like.

Like so many of my friends, it’s becoming a habit to chirp about my state of mind and the goings-on in my life on Facebook. But, during this frightening, disturbing terrorist and hostage crisis, while the rest of the world has been busy talking, all I was  able to do was listen and take it all in.

My Facebook statuses during the Mumbai crisis:

November 26, 9:48 pm (not too long after the news broke): “Sandhya is watching NDTV live and so sad about the unfolding events in Mumbai.”

November 28, 11:04 am (the standoff continues): “Sandhya is still watching NDTV live.”

November 28, 11:15 am (the standoff continues as does my feeling of helplessness): “Sandhya just signed the awaaz.org’s call for unity.”

November 29, 9:34 am (the faceoff ends): “Sandhya is thankful and relieved.”

Changing my status so infrequently is unusual for me.

The thing is, though, I was overcome with the same kind of numbness that overcame me on 9/11 when I was glued to the news and every source of information I could lay my hands on. Back then, I wanted to know and understand what was happening, but I didn’t have the desire or werewithal to process the events for anyone else.

Back then, we didn’t have Facebook statuses to help us examine our state of mind. Now, all I have to do is look at my minimal Facebook status updates during the three day standoff between the terrorists and the Indian forces to see my mental paralysis reflected.

In this world of instant response, constant tweeting, and simultaneous analysis, I’ve only just started writing about last week’s events and *my* Bombay. I suppose I’m still getting used to the idea that all this has happened; still processing it; still asking “why?” And, I keep reading, taking in all the information out there, hoping to find a clue, a better understanding. Finally, there’s also a part of me that says: What else can I truly add to the ongoing conversation? All I have are my memories of my Bombay to add to the mix. Why do they matter?

But, today, I finally started writing and I realized that my memories of my Bombay matter because they will help me to finally start making sense of this mayhem, this puzzle, this sadness I’m feeling. They will help me to remember the bruised city on the Arabian Sea as it was when I first got to know it. They will help me to break through the numbness. …

All of this is a long-winded way of explaining why this blog has been quiet for the past several days. I didn’t feel right about writing about anything other than Mumbai—and I wasn’t ready to write about my Bombay just yet.

Slowly, at snail’s pace, I’m getting there. Stay tuned …

What’s the difference between writing for print and writing for the web? Required reading for all bloggers and online content developers is Michael Agger’s piece “Lazy Bastards: How we read online” at Slate.

“It’s a jungle out there,” Agger says, examining the ideas of Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert.

To really get your attention, I should write like this:

• Bulleted list
• Occasional use of bold to prevent skimming
• Short sentence fragments
• Explanatory subheads
• No puns
• Did I mention lists?

Nielsen, however, believes that blogs are “good for generating controversy and short-term traffic, and they’re definitely easier to write. But they don’t build sustainable value.” (Mmm… I’m not so sure about that and neither is Agger.)

I paired my reading of this piece with editor Sarah Boxer’s history of “Blogs” in the New York Review of Books. She’s the editor of Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web (Vintage, 2008) which features excerpts from 27 literary blogs.

Boxer tells us that there are 100 million blogs in the world.

With such riches to choose from, you might think it would be a snap to put a bunch of blogs into a book and call it an anthology. And you would be wrong. The trouble? Links—those bits of highlighted text that you click on to be transported to another blog or another Web site. (Links are the Web equivalent of footnotes, except that they take you directly to the source.) It’s not only that the links are hard to transpose into print. It’s that the whole culture of linking—composing on the fly, grabbing and posting whatever you like, making weird, unexplained connections and references—doesn’t sit happily in a book. Yes, I’m talking about bloggy writing itself.

But, sometimes blogs can sit happily in print. You’ll know what I mean if you get your hands on the quarterly magazine Artful Blogging. It features full-color photos of visually inspiring (women-run) blogs from all over the world alongside posts by their creators on the impact on blogging on bloggers’ lives, and a look at what makes a great banner. The newsstand price is $14.95, but I got my copy of the summer 2008 issue for $2 from one of those Broadway book vendors.

If you’re interested in being featured in an upcoming issue of Artful Blogging, write about your blog-inspired transformation in your own blog, and e-mail the link to Staci Dumoski, Managing Editor at sdumoski at stampington.com.