Guest Post: From Hack Blog to Hot Job

Today on Tolstoy is my Cat we have a great guest blog from Jeanna Carter, from a series entitled 'Resources for Generation Y', about how blogging can be a great way to enhance your career prospects and appeal to employers, or to replace them altogether to make blogging your full-time job.

Blogging as an employment tool is not something I talk about very often on this blog, but I perhaps should, as it has helped me get more than one job, it's something that I always talk about in interviews and it works well for me as a type of online writing portfolio. Jeanna talks about it much better than I could though, so take it away Jeanna!

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From Hack Blog to Hot Job: Blogging Your Way to Your Dreams

For many people, a blog is no more than a place to share Aunt Edna’s tamale pie recipe, post photos of your new litter of kittens, or publicly journal about the travails and blessings of parenthood. Personal blogs are increasingly popular, both as a means of sharing information and as a way to connect with others. The attention that they are garnering is forcing many who once wrote them off to begin to consider them, especially in academic. Blogs are being used everywhere from top schools in Mississippi to Oxford. This is because the blogosphere can do much more than serve as an extension of Facebook or Google+.

Blogging is first and foremost a means of showcasing your writing, something that can be difficult for students and adults alike. Many aspiring authors and journalists get their start through blogging. The medium allows them to find their voice and draw a readership. The usefulness of blogs extends far beyond simple story-telling, though. Blogs exist for almost every career path, and can be a valuable means for putting specific skills and qualifications out there. You could also get published via blog. Either your blog posts themselves might find a way to publication on a popular site, or you could post portions of a pending book and attract the attention of publishers. Either way, a blog can be more than an online diary; it can be a path to realizing your dreams.

A blog can be a place to share thoughts on any topic, but as Money-Zine.com details, a job blog is a very specific type of a blog. Recruiters in all sorts of disciplines engage in “blog reconnaissance,” often weekly if not daily. Subscribing to popular blogs allows recruiters to see what is trending online, as well as to recognize particularly talented contributors. Reading blogs familiarizes them with the major players on any given topic.

Blogs are often an asset in this respect when interviewing or even just applying for a job, especially if you have little work experience. Establishing yourself as a blogger gives potential employers some sense of your abilities and qualifications. Regular online posts can give recruiters an idea of your level of expertise, and also a sense of your writing style and communication skills. The lesson here is simple: if you want your blog to help you find a job, you need to create one the puts your best foot forward.

Your job or career blog should be professional and focus on the job you want. As such, personal antics should be kept out. Do not share recipes unless your career path is culinary arts, and avoid photos of kittens unless you want to be noticed for your photography skills. Discussions of your quirky habits or the play-by-play of your relationship difficulties should be avoided.

You will want to keep your blog interesting and create quality content, and do all you can to avoid misspellings, poor grammar, or foul language. This often means moderating comments. Comments from readers can help give your blog credibility, and demonstrate that your content is something that the public wants. Comments must be useful, appropriate, and relevant, however.

If you have specialized knowledge, or can sound like an expert in your field, you should highlight this. Another hint is to be consistent: post daily, weekly, or biweekly, not just whenever you feel like it. Including an “About Me” section which states your interests and qualifications is also usually a good idea. Depending on your goals, you can even place a downloadable resume on this page.

It’s important to advertise your blog, because if you don’t, it’s like talking to an empty room. Link to your blog from any resumes you have posted on job search bulletin boards. Submit your blog to directories such as DMoz, news feeds such as Yahoo! and NewsIsFree, and services that scan blog pages, such as Bloglines. If you are trying to get published, you can link to your blog in emails to agents. It is also important to network with other bloggers, and leave comments that will link back to your own work. It often takes a lot of networking to stand out in the blogosphere.

People like Krishnan Nair, a would-be lawyer turned professional blogger, and the writer of the popular Hipstercrite social networking and marketing blog, are only two of the many who have turned internet writing into a steady job. The possibilities are endless. Developing a niche, a readership, and a reputation take time, but the payout can be life changing. Blogging is often described as a solitary pursuit. On the one hand, yes, though posts connect to a vast network -- and have the potential to get you where you want to be in your career. 

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'The internet is increasingly becoming integrated into every area of life and opportunities to cash in are constantly expanding. Today’s post, a perfect fit for a blog that talks about blogging, discusses how this activity has become a feasible way to make a living online. It was written by Jeanna Carter, who contributes to a site that will help you find the right college and make the most of the college experience.'  







'Breakfast at Tiffany's' by Truman Capote

Like most modern readers, I didn't come to this book uninitiated: the 1961 film version is one of my all-time faves. This is my first Truman Capote though, so that was something, although the stories and folklore surrounding his work made him feel familiar enough even before I started reading. 

The edition I read, the Penguin Modern Classics edition, published in 2000, has been superseded by 'new ed.' 2000 version, with the cover you see displayed. Like this edition though, it also featured three of Capote's short stories: 'House of Flowers', 'A Diamond Guitar' and 'A Christmas Memory', as 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' itself is a mere 100 pages. 
  

Breakfast at Tiffany's  

 

'Breakfast at Tiffany's', as I'd hoped, is a gorgeous story, with jubilantly lively writing, the irrepressible Holly Golightly and New York city,  full of glamour, potential and portent. I imagine you know the story: young writer moves into an apartment building in New York, is intrigued by his mysterious socialite neighbour, who thinks nothing of telling you what she wants to tell you, but will tell you nothing really of herself, and a relationship between them builds in which he immortalises her character, which alternatively delights and repels him, but always intrigues. She is one of the seminal character sketches, longing for both a solution to the 'mean reds' whilst abhorring the idea of ever being tied down.

The main thing that's stayed with me from it is that reading this story feels eerily like watching the film. The majority of it is the same, which never happens with adaptations. I don't mean it as a criticism, as it was actually a delight; much of the dialogue seems to have been lifted verbatim and the settings and scenes seem stunningly imagined/re-imagined in large part, down to the very last detail. There were a few structural changes made, but take this as your spoiler alert, as I'll discuss them below.

And there's Holly. Audrey Hepburn did a stunning job of making film-Holly much more likeable than book-Holly, I thought, although What. A. Character. - no wonder she's lasted. She twists and turns and contradicts herself and sits there flashing you a smile, fully formed and elusive on the page. Book-Holly seems flakier though, and less like someone you'd happily let pick you up and put you down and allow to crawl in through your bedroom window at 4am without asking too many questions. It's more realistic I suppose, and quite a bit less Hollywood: '$50 for the coat check' is rather more explicitly described, and the implication of a relationship between Holly and 'Fred'/the narrator seems paradoxically far more likely before the big reveal, and also silly in parts, as both Holly and the narrator seem to suggest throughout that he is, in fact, gay. I know that must seem kind of strange, but book-narrator seems less infatuated with an idea of her, and more in touch with the real Holly, who endlessly refuses to admit the real circumstances of her life in favour of something more hopeful and nebulous. 

And that's the big structural difference *spoiler* - she breaks her bail after the Sally Tomato scandal and goes off to Brazil. The narrator is in a limo, which substitutes for the taxi, with her just the same, as she changes her wet clothes and debates what to do, and she also lets Cat out in the street and he calls her a bad person, but then she's off, and the narrator only finds Cat some weeks later, sat, looking very content, in the window of another house.

 'She rubbed her nose and concentrated on the ceiling. 'Today's Wednesday, isn't it? So I suppose I'll sleep until Saturday, really get a good schluffen. Saturday morning I'll skip out to the bank. Then I'll stop by the apartment and pick up a nightgown or two and my Mainbocher. Following which, I'll report to Idlewild. Where, as you damn well know, I have a perfectly fine reservation on a perfectly fine plane. And since you're such a friend I'll let you wave me off. Please stop shaking your head.'

'Holly. Holly. You can't do that.'

'Et pourquoi pas? I'm not hot-footing after Jose, if that's what you suppose. According to my census, he's strictly a citizen of Limboville. It's only: why should I waste a perfectly fine ticket? Already paid for? Besides, I've never been to Brazil.'

This alters the beginning of the book too: we are introduced to the setting and to Holly when Joe Bell, who runs the bar close to the building they lived in, calls to say he's been in contact with Mr. Yunioshi, who was in Africa and found a tribesman with a wooden statue head that is the spitting image of Holly. So that's where she went when she left New York, they guess...and so he tells us how this all came into being. It's quite funny, I suppose, but apparently the likeness of the carving is so like her that there is no mistaking it, and in 1944, pre-facebook, I suppose looking for wooden carvings that resembled old friend's faces is the way you kept track of who was doing what and where in the world... Also, her husband Doc appears, just the same, but that is almost a side note, and is dropped much more quickly as a plot point than it is in the film.

I loved this story, which is a novella by definition, and devoured it in a day. I suppose the truest compliment I can pay it is that the novella is worthy of the film, and the film is worthy of it. Both are fuzzy and vibrant and wonderful. Some of the dialogue is original though; I spent the whole book looking for my favourite line,

'I'd marry you for your money in a minute'

but, alas, no. Capote is a hell of a writer though, even if this is the only story of his I ever were to read.

But, we know that not to be the case...

House of Flowers

 

This is another stunning story. It is about, although not narrated by, Ottilie, a teenage girl who comes down from her adoptive family in the Haitian mountains to Port-au-Prince and ends up, after dropping all of the rice that she has been entrusted to sell, as the most popular girl in the Champs-Elysee brothel. At a cockfight she meets Royal Bonaparte, a boy with a house of flowers in the mountains too. They get married and six months after her absconding with him her family and friends all presume that she must be dead.

In reality she's living in this house of flowers with Royal and his evil grandmother Old Bonaparte, who makes spells. She hates Ottilie and takes every opportunity to criticise and pinch her, and starts doing disgusting, witch-crafty things, like putting cat heads in her sewing basket and snakes in her food. Ottilie turns these spells around with effective effect, whilst Royal starts to return to his pre-wedding behaviours.

I don't want to give any more of the plot away, but this is a story about the satisfaction that can come with love, however abusive, and the challenges that a person can, frankly, take pleasure in overcoming.

Haiti is beautifully evoked - the whole story felt hot, heavy, dark and fragrant, and completely divorced from the New York which I'd been living in just a few pages before, and Ottilie is a great, three-dimensional character, as are, to a slightly lesser degree, Royal and Old Bonaparte.

This story subverted my expectations throughout, turning on a knife edge at one point, and the ending was a surprise that had me trying to suppress the shock and surprise on my face in a coffee shop, which seems a bit daft now as the rest of the country was sat elsewhere, watching the first England game.

Anyway, 'House of Flowers' is a really great short story, and a lesson in how to write them for best effect.

A Diamond Guitar 

 

The Diamond Guitar, the third story of four, is a story told in retrospect about a prison farm in an American forest where Mr Schaffer, one of few literate men in the prison camp and your classic old-timer, befriends Tico Feo, a young Cuban inmate with a diamond guitar, given to him by his sister, who also, incidentally, has a ruby guitar too. A relationship builds between the two men and they start to consider attempting some kind of prison break.

 I thought this was the weakest of the four stories, and I struggled to get into it before it was over, so much so that I don't remember the detail of what happened. I'm still wondering though how a man could be allowed to keep something like a diamond guitar with him in a prison - it's a working guitar with, what I imagine, are rhinestones stuck on - and why the other men wouldn't try to steal it, but nothing happens of that sort. It was quite an artificial premise and not one that I felt particularly affected by, although undoubtedly, my opinion of it was coloured by the fabulousness of the two stories before.

A Christmas Memory

 

'A Christmas Memory' was a touching, bitter-sweet story, somewhat incongruous on a sunny June day, about a little boy called Buddy and his cousin in her sixties, who I'm guessing is suffering from dementia or a learning difficulty as she is treated like a child also, which means Buddy, the lady and a Jack Russell called Queenie are largely free to do as they please.

This particular Christmas memory concerns the day they want to make Christmas fruitcakes to send out by post to all the 'acquaintances' they remember together, including President Roosevelt and the knife grinder who comes to town twice a year. They then want to decorate a Christmas tree, which is very sweet, although the story is kept on the bitter side of sweet by their lack of resources and ingenuity, and also the old lady's confusion about how she's treated and the fact that Buddy will soon grow up. Loss, loneliness and the sadness that many feel at Christmas are under-lying features of this story, as well as the notion of time and the inevitable passing of special moments with people you love.

''Buddy, are you awake?' It is my friend, calling from her room, which is next to mine; and an instant later she is sitting on my bed holding a candle. 'Well, I can't sleep a hoot,' she declares. 'My mind's jumping like a jack rabbit. Buddy, do you think Mrs Roosevelt will serve our cake at dinner?' We huddle in the bed, and she squeezes my hand I-love-you. 'Seems like your hand used to be so much smaller. I guess I hate to see you grow up.'

I found this story quite moving and I can see how it attained the 'classic' status that seems to have been bestowed on it, according to Wikipedia at least, but for me it pales in comparison to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' and 'House of Flowers.'

Title: 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'
Author: Truman Capote
Date of Publication: 1958; this edition 2000
Publisher: 1958, Random House/Hamish Hamilton; 2000, Penguin Modern Classics
Format: 157 pages, paperback, and I bought it from a used book stall in my home town for the bargain price of £4.







The Million's Most Anticipated List

A few days ago The Millions published their Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2012 Book Preview, listing all the book they were most excited about coming out before the end of 2012. I urge you to check out the full list yourself, but these are my personal picks from the list:

'Dare Me' by Megan Abbott, which is actually already out in the UK, published by Picador, is a dark look at the competitive world of cheer-leading and the modern adolescent psyche.  Her last book, 'The End of Everything', was highly acclaimed and The Millions reckons this book could make her 'the head honcho of suburban noir', so very curious about this.






 'NW', out in September in the UK and the US, is Zadie Smith's first novel in 7 years and concerns a fictional council estate called Caldwell in north-west London and the people who live there.

 
'White Teeth' has always been an important book to me, and I really enjoyed 'On Beauty's treatment of Howard's End, so I hope this new one will be just as good. Fingers crossed she doesn't go all 'Autograph Man' on me - that book went way, way over my head.

'Heroines' by Kate Zambreno is my next pick, although this book will be the first of hers that I've read. It's about, interestingly, the wives and mistresses of artists who are essential muses in their heydays but often end up silenced or erased. I think I become more political by the day, if I'm honest, especially with regards to women's politics, so this is the kind of book that I need. Also, Jezebel loves her, as does The Hairpin, and seeing as those are the two places I generally hang-out online, I reckon I will too. This one's out in September.

'Sweet Tooth' by Ian McEwan is my final pick, which is out in the UK in August and the US in November, and is apparently le Carre-meets-'Atonement' which makes me very excited as I recently made my happy way through 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and 'Atonement is one of my all-time faves.







Bookish Art: Galerija Umjetnina, Croatia

As I mentioned in a post the other day, I went to Croatia recently on holiday, travelling from Dubrovnik to Sipan to Brac to Split for twelve days of food, sun and culture. It was bliss. Whilst in Split, I went to the Galerija Umjetnina which sits just outside the Old Town walls, and some of the stuff was so lovely, I thought I'd share.*

Girl Reading I;

'The Divan' by Vlaho Bukovac, 1905 

 

Tolstoy, looking his usual cheery self; 

'Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy' by Ivan Meštrović, 1904

This is a man with a monkey;

Man with a Monkey, Frano Šimunović, 1935

 Girl Reading II;

Nude in the Interior, Sava Šumunović, ca 1926

 I just liked this;

Women in my Garden, Boris Bućan, 2009

There was also some great graffiti in the same area:

 *These are photos taken of artwork there, so obviously I claim no copyright etc. apart from to the photos themselves.







'One Day' by David Nicholls

'One Day' by David Nicholls was another of my  holiday reads in May, and seeing as this is such a popular book, I presume everyone who's going to read it has read it, so

*spoiler alert.*

Right then.  As everyone will know already, this book is the story of Dexter and Emma, friends who meet on graduation day at Edinburgh University in 1988. We then revisit them on the same day, the 15th July, every year for the next twenty years, and see how their careers, love lives and feelings for each other change and alter with each passing year.

She plucked the cigarette from his mouth. 'I can imagine you at forty,' she said, a hint of malice in her voice. 'I can picture it right now.'

He smiled without opening his eyes. 'Go on then.'

'Alright -' She shuffled up the bed, the duvet tucked beneath her armpits. 'You're in this sports car with the roof down in Kensington or Chelsea or one of those places and the amazing thing about this car is it's silent, 'cause all cars'll be silent in, I don't know, what - 2006?'

He scrunched his eyes to do the sum. '2004 -'

'And this car is hovering six inches off the ground down the King's Road and you've got this little paunch tucked under the leather steering wheel like a little pillow and those backless gloves on, thinning hair and no chin. You're a big man in a small car with a tan like a basted turkey -'

'So shall we change the subject then?'

Unfortunately, my darling husband gave away the fact that *spoiler alert* Emma dies before I got to read it, so bereft was he by her sudden death 17(?) years into the 20, so I imagine I read this book quite differently to everyone else as I was just waiting for the rug to be whipped away. I was wary of attachment, shall we say? He had the reaction that you read of in the reviews: big, weepy eyes, clutching book to chest like a loved one, sob. I kinda went, good book, but they're not real!

So anyway, there was a lot that I liked about this book. I thought the one-day structure was inspired, and I'm surprised I haven't come across it before, and I found it very easy reading, although occasionally I felt Nicholls lacked precision and that some bits of dialogue were quite baggy. His characterisation of Dex and Emma was great. Really, really great, actually, and I found myself often identifying with Emma, and it was nice to see some pretty strong aspects of myself on the page. I was definitely a fan of hers rather than his - I felt that he was a pretty unsympathetic character, and I was just waiting for the moment when he took hold of himself and manned up a bit, which didn't really happen at all, which I felt was a shame. Like, yes, he finally gets together with Emma and opens that deli, but he just seemed like one of those superficial guys who just jumps from thing to thing because they have no imagination to imagine their own path in achievable stages, and no backbone to carry any of those stages out. When he got together with Emma, things were better, yes, but the deli was her idea, she seemed to mother him an awful lot, and then after she died he returned to drinking and just reached for the nearest woman to start something new. I was really disappointed with the lack of growth that he showed, and pleased with Emma and how she progressed. But the fact that I'm ranting slightly shows that he affected me, which I guess signals a win for Nicholls :)

The death upset me, but largely because I felt that it changed the book into something that it wasn't, and it undermined all the good feeling that had gone before, especially because she seemed to have little lasting impact on either him or the story. She just dies, it gets a bit messy, and then we all move on. I felt this was Emma's story rather than Dexter's, so I felt Nicholls betrayed her by killing her for emotional effect. And I felt pretty manipulated - I know you can't foreshadow an accident without giving it away, but it made me wonder if he'd looking back on what he'd written in the 16 years prior and felt that it wasn't gritty enough, or whether he felt that he needed to balance the light with a bit more shade. I never felt that this was a tragic romance, as some are, and so to me the death felt forced and a bit false.

There's a lot of life in this book though, and parts of it are very, very funny indeed. I can see why it was so popular and gut-wrenching for many, and I am a little disappointed that I can't be another devotee, salivating in anticipation of his next work. I enjoyed it, though.

Title: One Day

Author: David Nicholls

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Date: 2009

Format: Paperback, 435 pages, and it was a gift.







Lana Del Rey Loves Whitman, Ginsberg and Nabokov...

I heard Lana Del Rey say yesterday whilst she was in Radio One's Live Lounge that her favourite writers are Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and Vladimir Nabokov: these were the first writers for her whose

'words came alive on the page'.

What a girl. (And thanks to whoever phoned in with that question).

Y'all know I love Nabokov (he's featured, in some way, in five of my blog posts to date), but I've not read any Whitman or Ginsberg, and I suspect that maybe they're more a feature of the American canon, than elsewhere? I'm aware of them, sure, but I don't hear them referenced much or talked about. Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass' poetry collection sounds fascinating though, as described on Wikipedia and by Miss Del Rey, so that's something to search out I think.

I found this reading of Ginsberg 'Howl' on Youtube and have only listened to the first few minutes so far, but I'm surprised by how much of it I recognise, so maybe I'm more aware of it than I realise.

Have you read any Whitman or Ginsberg (or Nabokov, for that matter), and what did you think?







The Dickens Statue on Chasing Bawa

Remember how back in the depths of Autumn last year, I mentioned that plans were afoot to place a statue of Charles Dickens in Portsmouth, UK, in this year i.e. his bicentenary?

Well, the lovely Sakura over at Chasing Bawa has written a piece describing her visit to a reception at the Mansion House to launch and publicise the statue design, with the Lord Mayor of London and various celebs and Dickens family members, so I suggest you pop on over and check it out. Coincidentally, the Mansion House has been all over the news this morning, thanks to a politico dinner last night, so you can see what a beautiful venue it is.

Also included in the article is a little donation pathway, should you want to put a few pennies towards this worthy literary cause.