New 'Old' Library Reminds Me Why I Write

In my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, we're blessed to have one of the top-rated library systems in the nation. As a writer who works in both fiction and non-fiction as well as a documentary filmmaker, the Columbus Metropolitan Library is a godsend.

When reserving items, library users have the option of designating a "home library" where their items will always be shipped for them to pick up. My new home library is actually my "old" library - the Whitehall branch at 4445 E. Broad St.

The library reopened on April 11 after a multi-million-dollar rebuild at a new location that has a very special meaning to me. The new Whitehall branch now sits in front of my childhood grade school: Holy Spirit Catholic School.

The Whitehall library and Holy Spirit were both instrumental in shaping me as a young writer. It was at Holy Spirit that teachers such as my fourth and seventh grade teacher Mrs. Colleen McKitrick saw something in me and sent me to the Young Authors Conference a couple years in a row.

And it was at the Whitehall library, which used to be located across the street from Holy Spirit when I was growing up in the '80s, that I discovered a book called Bizou. This young adult novel by acclaimed author Norma Klein inspired my debut novel, The Chloe Chronicles.

Bizou is about a biracial girl who is raised in Paris by her mother, an African-American fashion model, and sets out on a journey to America to find the Caucasian father she never knew.

Between the Whitehall branch and Holy Spirit's school library, I discovered dozens of literary treasures that sparked my already-fertile imagination. I read everything from young adult novels by Klein and another favorite author of mine as a kid, Paula Danzinger (Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice), to a fascinating biography of Albert Einstein that I read and re-read voraciously several times.

I look forward to discovering many more treasures at the Whitehall library's new, 20,000 square-foot facility, which is nearly three times larger than the old location.

We're fortunate in central Ohio that you can reserve items that are housed at other branches throughout the region and have them delivered to your home library. I've already had several books, DVDs and music CDs delivered to the Whitehall branch.

An added bonus of the new location is that it has a super-convenient drive-thru pick-up window, so you don't even have to get out of your car to pick up your reserves - a first for the Columbus Metropolitan library system.

Though it's only been open just over a month, I'm already loving my new, "old" library. Who says you can't go home?

Is There A 'Magic Number' For How Often to Blog?

"Four years ago, I had a partnership where I was doing two videos a week during the campaign season. I'm proud of a lot of the work that I did, but there were many times that I wanted to dig into some heavy, complex topic, but I knew the deadline was looming and I just wouldn't have the time to do it justice.
 

"And I wound up scrapping that topic so that I could grind out something really quick, like the latest optics or the latest gaffes or something that I could do a simple analysis on really quickly. 

"Even when I cut back to one video a week, there were times that this grind was just pushing me to the shallow end of the pool, and it was really frustrating.”

This statement by commentator Jay Smooth sums up how many of us journalists feel – that there are many issues we’d like to explore in-depth, if not for the limitations imposed by constant deadlines.

These days, the term “journalist” includes bloggers. This is a topic of debate, but there’s no doubt that the Internet has given a platform for anyone who feels so inclined to write about subjects they’re passionate about, express their opinions, sound off about events in the news and catalog random thoughts.

I’ve done all of the above with this blog, which has been a real labor of love (I say that about everything I do, but it’s true). Normally a statement like that precedes an announcement that you’re retiring or giving something up. I definitely don’t plan to stop blogging, but I’m going to try a different approach – at least for a little while.

I started blogging in 2009, mainly about pop culture, since I’m a journalist who has covered countless entertainment events over the years. I’m also a writer and filmmaker myself (just scroll through some of my previous posts to read about my novel, "The Chloe Chronicles"; documentary, "Lady Wrestler"; play, "The Springtime of Our Lives"; and forthcoming nonfiction book with Raymond Lambert about his legendary Chicago comedy club, All Jokes Aside).

When I was new to blogging, I posted sporadically, when some “brilliant” inspiration or salient observation popped into my head – and that was if I remembered it by the time I got to my computer. But once I got an iPhone and downloaded the Blogger app, I was able to write blog entries – or at least jot notes for entries – whenever and wherever I happened to be.

The mobile Blogger app came in really handy when I went on a tour in early April of civil rights landmarks in the South. You can read my series of posts about the trip by clicking this link.

As with everything else in life, we’re more likely to do something consistently if we schedule time to do it. Last year, I decided to start blogging on a more regular basis and began posting every day – first seven days a week, then I dropped down to six to give myself a breather at least once a week, and then only on weekdays.

By the end of 2014, I realized I was burning myself out and neglecting a lot of other projects by devoting so much time and energy to blogging. So at the beginning of 2015, I started posting once a week on Mondays. It seemed logical to post at the beginning of the week so potential readers would know when to look for my new content.

Blogging weekly seemed “appropriate,” posting just often enough to keep my blog up-to-date but not too much to overwhelm potential readers with too much content. I approached my self-assigned assignment like having a weekly newspaper column.

But after coming across Jay Smooth’s commentary on Fusion.net, his words solidified something that had periodically crossed my mind: maybe I should focus on quality over quantity.

Not that every blog entry has to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece chock full of Buddha-like wisdom. In fact, I happen to think that some of the more interesting blog posts spring from small, everyday observations.

 

As a journalist who has worked for several newspapers in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, as well as a daily internal newsletter for a large state agency, daily or weekly deadlines dictate my writing output. But the beauty of a blog is that I can post as often or as seldom as I please.

There really seems to be no “magic number” when it comes to blogging. There are bloggers who have enough readers to blog daily, while others choose to post only when they have interesting content.

I’m going to try to find a middle ground – giving myself more time to blog about issues I really care about but posting often enough that my blog seems fresh. There’s nothing worse that stumbling onto a blog or website that seems stale, out-of-date and abandoned.

With the Internet having created a universe that is as vast as the solar system, there is fierce competition for “eyeballs” – people who will actually click on a link and read a blog post. Rather than posting every week, maybe it makes more sense for me to post less often and spend more time getting the word out and attracting more readers to my posts.

Maybe I should spend less time writing something – anything – just to meet my self-imposed weekly deadline and more time pondering: What do I really want to write about? Who would be interested in this blog post and how can I reach them?

My experience blogging on a weekly basis has been that I often run out of time to promote my current blog entry before posting the next one. When I was blogging daily, I link-dropped daily on Twitter, Tumblr and occasionally on Facebook, but I'm not sure that's the best approach. Daily link-dropping has the potential of alienating more people than I attract by overburdening them with a glut of posts they'll never have the time or interest to read.
 

So starting this month, I’m going to “slow my roll” a bit. I plan to post just one more time in May, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, May 26, since the last Monday this month is a holiday. Maybe the “magic number” is posting two or three times a month, giving updates on the writing and other projects I’m working on and publishing another post or two about issues in the news and other things that prompt me to express myself.

Don’t get me wrong. I'm not hurting for blog material. I have a big backlog of potential posts in that Blogger app. I have many different interests and I pretty much have an opinion about everything.

But the question is if I should be more selective and strategic about the issues I express an opinion about.

I’ll see how this experiment goes this month and reevaluate my approach when June rolls around. Maybe by then, I’ll realize that I should go back to blogging weekly. Who knows?

For the time being, I’ll focus my energy on prepping my next post for May 26. Hope to see you then.