This entry poses two questions that I think are imperative for the beginning blogger to ask himself. On answering them, the aspiring blogger will find some direction, motivation, or purpose that will guide his endeavors so that he and his blog do not find their way into the deep, sucking morass of unread, unseen wasted web content.

The questions are these:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I Blogging?

The first might seem a little too existential to have practical purpose, but in reality, if left unanswered it often makes answer question number two very difficult. For example, say the answer to question one, in a hypothetical world, is “I am a doctor”. That makes the reason for blogging simple: “to give medical advice” or “to promote better understanding of medical procedures and terminology for a lay audience” or even “to assist in the transmission of important information between doctors in the same specialty”. Regardless, the answer to the second question often necessitates an answer to the first.

So, after all this speculation, its time for me to answer my own questions: who am I, and why on earth am I blogging?

Who am I? I am an aspiring poet, and freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. I am the founder, editor and currently sole member of a loose collective of freelance writers who share work, ideas, and generally foster community within the otherwise fragmented world in which most writers live. If there are two things I am passionate about they would be the interactions of words, and the interactions of human beings. Both fascinate me (perhaps to a degree some might deem unhealthy), and I plan to spend the rest of my life promoting a better understanding of each of these interactions. But that is once again heading off into the metaphysical. To return to the concrete reality, I am the recipient of a BA in both English Creative Writing and Spanish Language and Literature from the University of Denver. Although my degree does give me a good deal of pride, it does not change the fact that the current economy requires higher and higher qualifications for entry level positions, and that many situations in which a Bachelor’s degree would have been sufficient in the past decades now require an MA or higher. Fortunately for me, my fasincation with people and words has led me to believe I am well suited for a career in academia. However, with the economy where it currently is (i.e. the realm of polished white porcelian molded into a hemispherical shape), my pursuit of graduate degrees must follow my pursuit of a steady, or at least semi-reliable income. So, my desire for creating a community of freelancers was born. Other facts about me include such small details as my possibly pathological love of serial television shows, my intermittent bouts of insomnia, and my fascination with modern medicine in all its guises.

Why, given my somewhat strange response to question number one, am I blogging? Why are you, at this moment, reading this text? And why, exactly, will I post update after update on a weekly basis till my eyeballs threaten to pop out of my skull or I develop sever carpal-tunel syndrom due to my hours in front of a computer screen or my hours of typing, whichever comes first? Well, there are in fact three reasons.

1. Personal
2. Academic
3. Business

The first category of posts will be personal. They will describe interesting observations, anecdotes, and/or anything I see fit to put into an entry. They will be the least frequent sort of post I will write.

As for the academic category, I am a working, although as yet unpublished poet, and I am striving to change that fact (not that I am a poet, but that I am unpublished). This category will consist of updates in my “quest” to publish, as well as new projects on which I am working, and even excerpts of my poetry if I deem it useful and interesting to the non-literary public. So, for example, a post falling into this category might describe the current translation project I am pursuing: an interpretive translation of Gustavo Adolfo Bequer’s Rimas, which I hope will turn out something like Jack Spicer’s After Lorca. Or it might contain a poem I have recently submitted for consideration to literary journals, and perhaps my continued frustrations with rejection letters. This will be the second category in order of frequency.

Finally, the business category. Posts of this nature will be insights into the world of an aspiring freelance writer who is attempting to establish himself in the business world, in other words, my constant struggle to find work, meet deadlines, and gain repeat clients. It will also give updates on the status of my collective group of freelancers, which I have dubbed NWFA, short for Northwestern Freelance Associates. If a new writer joins, or some new development occurs (such as our website, currently under construction, coming online), the faithful readers of this blog (and the NWFA specific blog at www.nwfa.blogspot.com) will be the first to know.

No blog entry would be complete (at least not an entry this fragmented) without a good summarizing paragraph. Here’s where I will attempt to pull all the random elements of the last 950 words into some sort of cohesive thought which you, the reader, can extract and subsequently apply to your otherwise mundane lives. So here it is: this blog will allow you to watch the struggle of a real life writer as he tries to break through into both the literary and the business sphere. Who knows, perhaps you will watch my efforts with cynicism, and delight in my faliure. Or perhaps you will identify with my creative spirit and cheer me on to victory. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I know it will be interesting, so follow me as we face it together! (or at least, as I face it and you read about it)

~NRH