I found this message from a Ms Mary Lim sitting in my email inbox last evening.
I am a freelance writer working with Simply Her on the above story. I came across your blog and was so tickled by it! Your sunny perspectives on motherhood and life in general would provide interesting insights for our readers, who are married with children as well.
I was wondering if I could feature you in my story. Would you be available for an interview (phone, personal or email) and photoshoot (14 Oct @ Simply Her studio, Genting Lane).
The topics I would like to cover for the interview include:
- why did you decide to start a blog?
- how did you learn to blog?
- how do you make the time to include new entries?
- what were the responses you received from those who read your blog? most memorable one?
- how did their responses or blogging help you cope with motherhood better?
- in your opinion, what makes women better bloggers?
I would appreciate your response to this request by 5 Oct, Thur, and we can complete the interview by 9 Oct, Mon. If you have other queries about the story, pls feel free to contact me. Thanks!
Ah so, my blog is getting some attention.
If I remember correctly, this is also the same magazine that featured my best friend about her hobby on fencing and she was quite famous for a while after that because she had people going up to ask her if she was the person on the mag.
For glory sake, I should jump on this isn’t it?
Why yes I would if…this can launch a writing career for me. Or can make me rich overnight. Yesh siree, I’m greedy. Which was why I politely declined to be interviewed with my real name and picture. I replied the writer telling her that I prefer to blog under a pseudo.
I am fine with publicity for my blog. Provided no real name. No pictures taken.
Sure I’ll enjoy the extra readership such a feature could bring. But I’m also particular about who reads my blog. I don’t mind strangers I don’t know in real life reading my musings. But I MIND PEOPLE I KNOW IN REAL LIFE COMING TO READ MY BLOG. (With exceptions of a handful.)
Heck. I don’t want my relatives, colleagues, stds, participants, ex-bfs, ex-bosses, ex-colleagues, ex-friends, coming to read my thoughts and my life. Worst still, people who secretly wish me unwell reading my blog and stalking my life online. Yucks!
Blogging will certainly become no fun if I need to carefully consider my topics and words (like cannot anyhow say KNNBCCB.)
Anyhow, I was still very cooperative to the writer and answered the questions posed to me except for the one on ”What makes women better bloggers?” I couldn’t answer that. First of all, are women better bloggers? Where did that come from? And in what sense are they better?
Actually I have the answer lah. But this is strictly off the record and cannot be quoted k.
“因为我们无聊.”
*taking cover*
You forgot the second line.
无聊才有料!
DR: Heheheh…I need 有料 women like you to fill the line mah…
Comment by domestic rat — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 2:05 pm
Not bad! You getting famous leh!
Ashes: Far from it lah. But I wish I’m getting richer instead.
Comment by Ashes — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 3:15 pm
I absolutely, totally agree with what you said about blogging being no longer fun if you have to do self-cencorship knowing all kinds of people you know will be reading your blog. Isn’t also kind of creepy knowing that a total stranger you bump into on the street may know everything about you (having read you like an open book on your blog) whereas you know nothing about them?
mumsgather: Yikes! The worst thing is they lurk and they don’t tell you…
Comment by mumsgather — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 3:16 pm
Great! Drop us all a note when the issue comes out. Will certainly buy
SSF: This is different from yours lah. I may not get featured at all since I didn’t agree to be photographed. At most, they might just quote something I say…
Comment by sunshinensunflower — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 3:31 pm
Yeah, let us know when it’s out..will go grab a copy!
Eileen: Aiyah. Nothing will come out of it cos I didn’t agree to be photographed.
Comment by Eileen — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 4:04 pm
I agree… I very wu liao, that’s why I blog. Heheh…
Even though we know that blogs are in itself very open to public scrutiny and more so if you do not maintain absolute anonymity, at least we can choose to be blissfully ignorant of the fact than our blogs are being read by a wider section of the population than we would like to believe. (Close one eye, open one eye lah).
I do not blog anonymously, but if I were to be approached to let my blog out in the open like that, I will decline too. I can’t imagine the same set of people you have listen above reading my blog. Urg!
Lil’ Joy: Heheh. That makes 2 of us at least…Well for the blog, I might post pix here and there but it is kept within the online circle. Once people offline knows I have a blog, they’re likely to be curious to want to check it out especially when they know or knew me. That’s what I want to avoid!
Comment by Lil' Joy — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 4:27 pm
*listed
Comment by Lil' Joy — Fri, 6 Oct 2006 @ 4:28 pm
Oh you are getting famous. Can I have your signature now?
herry: Oh wait, I need to get a nice expensive pen first…
Comment by herry — Sat, 7 Oct 2006 @ 10:04 am
Hey..SS,
I totally understand your decision. I donch think i would do an interview either.. as it is already.. everything i write gotta be protected.. hahha!
MB: Haha…only within the closed circle right?
Comment by Mama Bok — Sat, 7 Oct 2006 @ 11:59 am
Wow sesame, you’re blog is being recognized. I also don’t want all my relatives and acquaintances to read my blog. Only a select few knows about it. I’m not really blogging anonymously and I still choose the topics I write about. Can’t bare my soul that much.
niceheart: I know what you mean. Even though I blog under a pseudo, I still am conservative about baring all my soul.
Comment by niceheart — Sat, 7 Oct 2006 @ 12:20 pm
hehehe!!! i’d run a mile from any request like that. i like a certain amount of privacy still.
imp: I don’t mind the publicity on my blog. I just mind the publicity on myself. Except if that publicity earns me the opportunity to write a book or something.
Comment by imp — Sat, 7 Oct 2006 @ 3:41 pm
Sama sama….I enjoy blogging under a pseudo, with only a few selected ones knowing my real identity. Wouldn’t accept an interview, if ever I was approached to do one, (yeah, like that’s gonna happen, but still….)
DT: Oei, you never know…
Comment by DT — Sun, 8 Oct 2006 @ 7:50 pm
Hiiiiiiyaaaaaahhhhh!!!! *pie flying through the air towawrds you* I resent being labelled wu liao!
But true. So true. Doesn’t mean we’re better bloggers though. Just means there’s a larger pool of blogs to sift through, so probability suggests better blogs by women just because there’s more to choose from.
Frankly, I’d be in a bind if I were you. It’ll be fun being recognized for something you enjoy, but I do prefer to not really know who reads. I blog semi-annonymously, so anyone I know stumbling through could figure out who I am. That, I think, is okay, but to have strangers seek your blog out and identify you “on the street” is unnerving. There are, after all, crazies out there….
Hsin: FINALLY I offended one lady! And I was wondering why everyone was so nice…lucky I’m still taking cover.
Comment by Hsin — Sun, 8 Oct 2006 @ 10:27 pm
Well, well, we have a celeb now!!! OK, the next Simply Her, right? I like your reply to Mary on no photos, please.
MS: Celeb my toes lah…haha…it won’t appear cos I already said no to her request.
Comment by mother superior — Mon, 9 Oct 2006 @ 2:32 pm
Yeah, Fame is no fun. But thought you hv give up the opportunity, being short-list is already a good recognition for you talents isnt it?
Well Done! SS!
wtpg: I do think it’s a pity in a sense as I do enjoy having more (interested) readers coming to visit my blog and interact here. But I know I have made a wise decision.
Comment by wtpgrr — Mon, 9 Oct 2006 @ 5:45 pm
and yeah, I think diff people blog for diff reason and mine is too shy to call blogging, I just hope to create a space to chart my girls’ achievement… sub-consciously it has becomes my space for my 无赖 plus 空虚 venting
wtpg: 空虚 venting; that’s true for me too…
Comment by wtpgrr — Mon, 9 Oct 2006 @ 6:01 pm