My blog’s a year old this weekend – come and join the party!
People often remark on the name Dirty White Candy (and for those who are curious, the explanation can be found somewhere on the right). This weekend marks a year since that evening – when my blog-savvy writer friend James Wallis gave me a spare room on his Dreamhost server and inaugurated me with a URL all of my own.
I owe him an enormous debt for pitching me into this hugely rewarding community. And I owe all of you heartfelt thanks for embracing my rants and musings as I try to better my craft, for responding so warmly and making me so welcome. I can’t believe that 12 months ago I knew none of you.
So as this is a birthday, I want to know about you. Whether you’re a regular commenter or you usually slip by in silence, I’d love it if this time you’d say hi.
If you have a writing blog, introduce it briefly. If you haven’t got a blog but you’re active on a forum, leave a URL. And, as this is a bit of a party, if you read through the comments here and find someone you haven’t encountered before, drop by and say hello.
Most importantly, I want to know this. How did you choose the name you use for your blog or forum presence? There are a lot of you I’ve been dying to ask for ages!
Nail Your Novel 
I eat chocolate chip waffles weekly, and have for years. Chocolate is part of my personal landscape, language, love. Hence, my blog name: The Chocolate Chip Waffle.
Mine is Major Musings. Terrificly boring! But, I was trying to start my blog, stuck for a name and my husband threw it out. Instead of procastinating longer, i simply decided to go with it.
Hi!
I’m not sure about “writing blog” but I’m on livejournal as lathany (a fictional country from a roleplaying game I ran – I wanted an unused name at short notice). My LJ blog contains stuff about my life and the occasional review – at the moment I’m reviewing Heroes season 4 as it appears on BBC 3.
I’ve been reading you for about three or four months and I may have commented once. I suspect I know precisely one of your readers – the one I’m married to.
Hi Terresa, Jennifer! And Dawn – I recognise your distinctive email… is your husband Dom, by any chance? Or have I just hooked you up to the wrong person? And you’re a roleplayer… so is my husband. Hey, this is turning out like a real-life party.
Congrats on the one year! Awesome 🙂
I fell into blogging too. An online friend advised me to start, so I had a look at 2 posts of her blog and started one. I’d never even seen another blog. I also choose a name that weekend. My employer would not like me publishing anything with even a hint of romance, so I needed a “new” name. I used one with family ties, tied the blog name “Just Jemi” (http://jemifraser.blogspot.com/ ) to the name and off I went. It was very, very fast, but it all worked out 🙂
First, Happy Blog Birthday. *throw confetti*
I feel sort of bad, because I don’t know when mine is. I think I’m approaching 2…I think.
I knew I wanted a coffee tie-in with my blog name as I LOVE IT and I’m a coffee-house writer. I kicked ideas around (don’t even remember the other candidates) with my very good CocoaStomp blogger friend and we agreed it should be CUPPA JOLIE. It seemed to work for so many reason, and then even better than expected. I get many comments about my blog name. People remember it, and it’s been a whole lot of fun to meet people at conference who see my first name and ask, “Are you Cuppa.” Kind of makes my day.
I invented the word eFiction to describe fiction written for an internet audience. I googled it and found out that it was already in use by a fan-fiction archival service. I used it anyway and haven’t looked back.
Congratulations on the anniversary, Roz! (Actually, I can scarcely believe you’ve been doing it ONLY a year; you seem to be so natural at it!)
When I first started my current blog a couple years ago, thinking of EB White — whom I admire madly (as I think I mentioned in a comment some weeks back), and who once wrote a column called One Man’s Meat — I called it Meat & Poison. That lasted like two days, but I really didn’t feel that it set right.
Then — not really looking at the moment — I came across GK Chesterton’s essay about the sublimely giddy sensation one gets from watching a man chase after his hat after it had fallen off in a wind. Coincidentally, at around the same time I re-watched the Coen Brothers’ film Miller’s Crossing, which features striking imagery of a man’s fedora being blown along the ground…
Thus: Running After My Hat. Since settling on that title, I never once felt restless about it.
@Roz – Yep, you’re quite correct! I am indeed Dawn’s husband.
As to your question, my LJ username (and online tag in most other places too) is ‘bateleur’, which is a kind of very geeky pun. It’s the name of a tarot card. That particular card – the first of the major arcana – varies a bit from pack to pack. In other packs it is “Magician” or even “Wizard”. The word ‘bateleur” translates literally as “juggler”, so there is a connection between the two versions of the card. A juggler is someone who performs tricks, but interpreted more broadly is a street performer in a way that encompasses stage magic and the like. And then it’s one further step from that to wizard, which is more usually associated with actual magic than tricks. And of course on the internet (and particularly in early multi-user dungeons) a ‘wizard’ is a kind of superuser with demigod-like powers and/or someone with programming abilities. Which is what I do: I’m a programmer.
How’s that for a tl;dr explanation? 😉
You’re dead right about the party thing, incidentally. For me the whole internet’s like that. Except better than most real parties because I can read all the good blogs and none of the dull ones!
Happy one year anniversary. I started my blog on New Year’s Day as a resolution. It’s named for how I’ve sometimes felt as a writer, i.e., Writing in the Wilderness.
My blog (just starting out) is called “whenigrowupiwanna. . . .” Why? Well, I’m 70 years old, retired from being professorial, and now chin deep in writing my first historical novel and –in general — reinventing myself. Retirement means having the chance to try all sorts of new things, and I’m enjoying testing all kinds of new waters.
Guys, you are turning out to be even more fascinating than I suspected. Pseudonyms, life changes, landmark books, alternate identities in day jobs, previous ventures into publishing… I’m really enjoying this!
Hi and Happy Birthday. I’m not sure it’s a ‘writing blog’ — not because I don’t write about my writing, but because I don’t write often — but it’s at http://sleepyscholar.livejournal.com/
The funny thing about livejournal is that, although they let you ‘name’ your blog, it seems almost pointless. As Dom Camus, above, makes clear, your name (in my case, my pen-name of Sleepy Scholar) seems to be given more prominence. A bit like those airport-novels where the author’s name occupies most of the cover, and the title is of minor importance. That’s OK with me, as my blog is called imablog. Not only is it a dull name in its own right, but it’s a reference to my old fanzine (‘imazine’) which was mainly named that because I mocked up a logo parodying another magazine, and having done that couldn’t bring myself to use it only once and then chuck it.
Sleepy Scholar is short for ‘The Sleepy Scholar of Zhenfu’, which is my ‘Chinese’ pen-name. It’s a literal description of me, since I’m sleepy, teach at a university, and live in Zhenfu (or rather, a Japanese locality which is read Zhenfu in Chinese).
@Mrs Morris: I could actually just stroll over to your study with a cup of celebratory tea and perhaps a congratulatory biscuit, but here’s a comment instead.
Wrt blogs, my Mirabilis blog has writing tips that are mostly specific to comic books but have some relevance (and hopefully interest) to anyone writing in visual media like TV or movies too. That’s
http://mirabilis-yearofwonders.blogspot.com/
and it has the name because Mirabilis is one of my projects, about a green comet that appears in the sky and allows things from the imagination to start creeping over into reality. The story spent over a year in WIP stage under the name “Mythologica” (yuck) until I thought, “Hmm, what would one call a year of wonders… Aha!”
I also have the Fabled Lands blog, which is where I showcase a lot of my more traditional fantasy/sci-fi projects – not usually comics – and sometimes touch on the writing side:
http://fabledlands.blogspot.com/
But that one’s really for the hardcore fantasy fan, unlike Mirabilis, which is more mainstream YA Harry Potter type stuff. It’s called Fabled Lands because it does what it says on the tin 🙂
@Mr Morris – now where’s that tea?
I’m a fairly new reader but I’ve been blogging for three years now. I started because I wanted to join the Novel Racers’ blog and actually commit to writing my novel. But in fact, when I’m writing regularly I find I have less need to blog. I’ve been living in Bangkok in Thailand for five years so my blog is about that experience too.
I called it Tea Stains because I love tea and can’t live without it and as an art student I played with images of tea stains. I also love the idea of the stain… the thing in me that make me want to write that however I’ve ignored it and done other things… it’s always there and you can’t get away from it.
It’s good to meet you all.
well the first attempt was meant to be an anagram of “working title” but “Toke Twirling” wasn’t quite the image I wanted put out there so “Twirling Words” made do until I finally came up with “Classic in the Attic”, which is what I’m trying to aspire too.
I’ve reinvented myself lots of time through blogs–“Writing Your Feelings” is my 4th reincarnation, in fact, but it’s the only one I felt I could really DO. I started on blogger two years ago, tried a blog called Bitter Theory and then just Susana Mai, switched to wordpress, resisted getting a Twitter account, and then I finally realized that I needed to shift my blogging from merely general musings and make it into something I could update regularly and that had a more focused topic (mostly about writing/books/publishing instead of whatever mumbo jumbo popped into my head). And I liked the idea that instead of “eating my feelings”, I would write them down.
@Carolyn good for you! It’s never too late to reinvent yourself 🙂
When I first started writing, I joined Absolute Write and had to pick a nickname. I decided on Chumplet, a pet name my sister’s husband had given her when they were teens. To me, the name embodies someone small, cute and fuzzy. I’m short, and was once cute, and I sure hope I’m not fuzzy.
After a while, I started a blog and kept the name since most of my new friends in the industry knew me by that name. I have since added my pseudonym to my profile nickname, but most people still affectionately call me Chumplet.
Sometimes I wonder if the name will be more popular than my books LOL.
What a great post, topic and question! My blog is Penny Jar: A heads up on being at the tail end.
My first blog is a “mommy blog” of sorts, but early on I wrote a short memoir post I called Penny Jar about my brother coming home from the Marines. For years I’d been threatening my family with a memoir and realized I could use a blog to get the juices flowing. I figured I may as well use that first memoir post as momentum.
Thanks for the chance to share!
Fabulous question re naming of the blog. I actually have my pets to thank … see site for story details. But, in short, my pets love to lounge in a sunny room in the morning–cat and dog together, in harmony–so I commented to my husband one day, “They sure love that sunny room.”
And since I’d been brainstorming with friends and family re the perfect name for a sunny, creative space for kindred spirits to discuss the Universe and other less grandiose topics, SunnyRoomStudio came to life.
My blog is written as DazyDayWriter (a .com at the same site), and recently (I’m a poet/author), I blogged about the Poetic Life.
Do you have a poetic life? What is a poetic life? How would you define it and why is a poetic life an intriguing goal? Going for thought-provoking questions that invite contemplation, reflection, and creative thought.
Great comments bring a blog to life, so stop by, share your ideas about a Poetic Life. (You can also find pictures there of my pets, Noah and Lola, because they have their very own page … having inspired the name for Sunny Room Studio.) Next cloudy or rainy day, stop by!
Congrats, Roz. Great work!
Happy Anniversary!
I named my blog Yingle Yangle after a scene in Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Mason & Dixon.” A MC asks a Norwegian man a question and the answer is represented as “Yingle. Yangle,” because the MC doesn’t speak Norwegian and has no idea what the person said. (It’s also supposed to have something to do with Yin and Yang). Thinking of that line always makes me grin and I hadn’t intended on sharing it with anyone.
My blog was originally a private site I used to write for at least 10 minutes a day in response to a randomly found Flickr image. An exercise. My wife, my brother (also a writer), and my writing group knew I was doing this and I gave them access to the site to keep me accountable. I wanted a title that would make me smile when I went to it.
After a few months I made the site public and (in addition to the exercise) began posting about writing fiction regularly as a means to write down what I’m thinking about writing and hopefully eventually facilitate discussion. Keeping that name may not be the best idea, since it doesn’t have any evident connection with writing. I haven’t decided yet. I added a subtitle about “crafting fiction” to provide a bit of clarity.
Funny you posted this today, because I did change my Twitter name today to @PauloCamposInk (which is clearer than the serial number-esque name I’d had before).
Keep up the great work!
You guys are so creative. I had no idea this would be so much fun.
@Paulo, I love the idea of writing to a random Flickr image. Thank you so much for sharing this.
@Daisy, funny you should drop by to talk about your sunny room. I’ve been thinking about how our writing blogs are like our studios – or our bedrooms when we were children, private, imaginative spaces.
@Victoria @Sandra @Susana @Beth @JJ Thank you for sharing such personal stories.
Happy blog birthday…and many more! My blog is Jane’s Ride at http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/ . I used the name of my first book, The Ride, to come up with my blog name. Being published has been a new experience for me — I feel as though I’m on one wild and crazy ride.
Happy Blogoversary, Roz!!
My blog “Life at Willow Manor” is a magpie’s gathered nest of shiny things I’m attracted to, everything from poetry, to recipes and film.
Willow Manor is actually the name the original owners gave to our ramshackle old house. Hence, the name of my blog.
Happy birthday! DWC!
It’s been fun to follow your blog.
My blog, Fiction Notes, started because I teach Novel REvision Retreats. When it was hosted at LiveJournal, it was Revision Notes, but that was too restricted. By renaming it Fiction Notes, I could talk about a wider range of writing topics.
Darcy,
Your faithful reader
Happy blog birthday! Like many of your readers here, I’m a little surprised that this is only your first year of blogging.
Not to be buttering up the birthday blog, but yours is one of the most original names I’ve come across. And your story of discovering the name Dirty White Candy is pure delight!
My blog a.k.a writer is a play on the spelling of my name. Family lore is that my parents weren’t sure how to spell Jessica, so they spelled it phonetically. Being from Texas, many relatives pronounce it, “Jes’ka.” The other story is that my dad discovered the name and claimed it was English. Either way, the spelling of my name – as well as my passion for writing – had defined me most of my life. It seemed like the perfect name for both my blog and my copywriting business.
Thanks for hosting such a fabulous blog bash!
I follow you on twitter, and decided to stop by your blog 🙂 Happy one year! Your blog title is so interesting and unique… love it!
My blog is named Aspirations, which is not the most original name, I’ll admit. For one thing, I’m terrible at naming things (my novels, pets, websites…), so when I thought of Aspirations, I thought, hey, why not? But mostly, I named it after this quote by Lousia May Alcott, because it describes my dreams and writing journey:
“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.”
My website is named Ink Diva Diaries. Ink because I’m sort of an obsessive collector of pens and notebooks. They hold so much potential. Diva because I think there’s a little diva in all of us and we should celebrate it.
Happy anniversary! What a fun topic.
I’ve only been blogging for six weeks, so “Don’t Pet Me, I’m Writing” is still in its infancy. I write romantic comedy and humorous mysteries, so I wanted something a bit quirky and unusual. I’ve always been intrigued by those little signs worn by service dogs that say, “Don’t Pet Me, I’m Working,” so the original idea came from that. The tagline, “One author’s quest for focus, success and the perfect Chianti” pretty much sums up everything else I want out of life.
Love the blog!
Tawna
Hi Roz,
Congrats on your first year!
I named my blog Inkhorn Blue because in medieval heraldry, the inkhorn represents writing and blue (azure) symbolizes truth.
Now that I have a contract for my first trilogy, I may have to insert my oewn name at the beginning of my blog title, which is not nearly as interesting.
I’m a self-pubbed YA author and I mostly lurk. With the occasional comment. My blog is an extension of my author site, but the tag line “I can write you into my world…and I can write you out” came from that one Cosby Show eppie where Bill tells his son, Theo, “I brought you into this world…and I can take you out.” For some reason, that stuck with me for a long time, so I borrowed it and used it for blog.
There are so many original approaches to writing and blogging emerging here – keep ’em coming, guys. And thanks for making a girl feel very chuffed on her blog’s birthday!
My blog is called ‘The Truth About Lies’. It’s a quote from a poem:
I think pain’s like water
like the chill of the moment
like the birth pangs of poems
and the truth about lies
is we can’t live without them.
Not even the white ones.
It also alludes to another poem:
Writers are all liars. We all are.
But at least they are honest liars.
My blog is all about writing, writing fiction, and since fiction is made up (and therefore not true) it’s a lie and yet so many truths are contained in those lies.
I chose Northwriter because I wanted something with an Alaskan twist that also had something to do with writing. And, I wanted it to be short. I don’t remember how I came up with it but I’m pretty happy with it.
@Jim @Paul – I’ve been wondering about both those names, on my travels around the blogworld – and was hoping you’d drop by to give me the inside story.
Late to the party as usual, but since I still see a few bloggers sipping wine and munching nachos I’ll add my 2 pennies.
Cat Woods is a combination of my kids’ names (Woods being my maternal grandmother’s maiden name and my youngest child’s middle name. C-A-T are the first initials of my first three offspring). Nature, to me, is the best place to connect to your writing soul. So, Words from the Woods was an obvious choice. Especially since I try to provide a little inspiration to other writers in their journey.
Cat, you made it! And a pleasure as always!
The first unsuccessful blog was called “Valley of the Skitster” because my web-name is Skitster and putting “Valley of the” before something gives it a certain level of brilliance.
Current unsuccessful blog is Cold Vehicles, which has a post-punk / no-wave sort of sound to it while actually being a quote from a Le Fanu story: “Pen, ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the marvellous”. Which fitted.
@Scott – Wahoo, a person I haven’t seen for years has crossed from real life into blogworld! Welcome.
I chose the name for my blog from a Rumi poem. The poem is about taking time to appreciate your life and what you have. The blog is a “guide to living in the here and now.” Seemed to fit.
I’m enjoying your blog! It’s very well put together and thoughtful. Well done.
Anna