Personality Puzzle

It’s 6pm on a Monday night, so you know what that means: we made it through the first day of the week, and I’m in my pajamas and I’ve hit my productivity level for the day.

One thing that has been plaguing me for the week or so that I’ve been “back to bloggin,” is that I’m not really sure I have identified and stayed true to the purpose for which I began this blog.  Ok, so it was never really that clearly defined, but at least I felt as though I was accomplishing something in the beginning, even if it was something to keep my busy instead of snacking.  I consider myself to be a well-read blogger, and I have a few heroes:

• The Hungry Running Girl
• A Bowl Full of Lemons
• Carrots ‘n Cake
• Iowa Girl Eating
• Swanky Dietician
• Cultfit
• Peanut Butter Fingers
• Run, Eat, Repeat
• Crazy Running Legs
• Running Off the Reese’s
• Eat – Watch – Run
• Cuddlebuggery Book Blog

What is it that I admire about these bloggers and their digital offspring?

1. Writing Style – they’re all extremely engaging, creative, and keep my attention long enough for me to want to invest my few minutes of free time on a nightly basis while trying to ignore the ESPN commentary that fill my post-dinner living room air.
2. Personality – You can really gain a sense of whom each of the authors are.  I know who are my loving life and upbeat gals are, and which bloggers to turn to when I need someone to share in my snarky take on mundane, daily life.  I also know who can inspire me to get my tush off the couch and make it to the gym every morning, and some of their own workout routines that I take along with me.
3. A focus – Each blog has a distinct purpose and I can rely on that to stay consistent as I scroll through their photos and gifs.
4. Entertainment – I can Wikipedia the hell out of a topic, but you’re getting the essential information.  In and out; no muss, no fuss.  No fun.  I don’t want to read the same information in the same format that I can find on any ol website, and these guys and gals know how to produce the pizzaz.

So how do I plan on putting these attributes to work in my own blog?  Well that’s the million dollar question that I am asking myself.

Blogger Inventory:

• What is your purpose for writing?

In English, we talk about three different author’s purposes:  to persuade, to entertain, to inform.

So what is my purpose?  I could go the “Inform” route and focus on education.  I am a certified English teacher, but I feel far from experienced enough in the classroom to tell anybody what they should and should not be doing.  I could also change the purpose of my blog to entertain, but I am a total niche sense of humor gal.  Not everyone understands what I find funny.

• What is your blog’s focus?/What type of blog do you want to produce?

I am a floundering blogger right now because I don’t know which direction is shore, so to speak.  I haven’t been consistent in blogging because I am not sure which direction I want to pilot this publication pot.  I have a few ideas here;  I want to stop being a trifecta of topics because it’s way too confusing, mostly for me.  Here are my options: Classroom/Education, Books, or Exercise.  There can be some overlap of course, but I want one main topic.  I am leaning towards Classroom/Education with a side focus of Books.  Quite honestly, those are the real bread and butter topics that consume my life.

• What is your blogging voice/tone?

I can only be myself, which is someone who is brutally honest about my opinions, and sometimes they come off as a playful teasing all the way to snide.  I don’t want to be mean, but I do want to be genuine.  When something is exciting and pleasing to me, I want that to come across as legit and not pretentious.

Whatever I am, whatever I do, I want to be the best.  Even if “Best” is defined as “doing better tomorrow than today.”

So what does this mean?   When all the goop has been cleaned off the walls and all the scraps of papers with scribbles have been uncrumpled and rammed through the shredder, I know that I am an educator at the core of my soul.  Therefore, from this point forward, Fancy Oatmeal shall be known as an emerging educational blog with a twist of book bloggery.