My daughter has jumped into it lately over her opposition to my (admittedly) low-end humor over the demise of renowned child molester Michael Jackson.
My daughter is eighteen. She is intelligent. She is a big bundle of potential, much the same as a couple of kilos of plutonium. I’m a dad. Hers. There are some things I am very proud of in her life. Some maybe not so proud. Such is the lot of the father of a teen.
She has her own blog (again) but I’ll be darned if I link to it until I’ve seen a couple of weeks of regular posting.
Daughter aspires to be a writer, perhaps as a primary job, or maybe as a key skill in another field. She has written some pieces that I find pretty good for her lack of experience and education. I applaud them, and I wish she’d do more. I know she CAN do it. Whether or not she WILL do it, well, that’s a different thing.
However, like many, she has a strong tendency toward engaging her mouth (or keyboard) before getting her brain up to speed. I have repeatedly advised her of the standards of propriety in the company of strangers. I just as well sling spitwads at a battleship.
I normally would deign to bare dirty laundry on this forum, but she seems to have taken some liberties with a “my daddy has a blog and he thinks I’m wonderful, so THERE!” attitude.
Little darlin’… I love you to pieces, but if you don’t act nice, you won’t get any more invitations to other people’s houses… Okay?
(Speaking as a prof…) If she doesn’t actually start paying attention to things like grammar, punctuation and capitalization (even in her “personal writing,” which in an on-line environment will hang on forever and appear at the snap of a Google search), she’s not going to make it very far as a writer.
Though the NYT has increasingly lower standards. :)
Ah, children. We do what we can with our fledgelings, and eventually they test their wings!
(I’m going to take the liberty of adding you to my blog roll.)
Come on man…Throw her to the wolves!
Just Damn!
Good luck. I had to figure it out the hard way. Only in my mid-to-late thirties did I finally realize just how smart my parents were. Here’s hoping she’s faster off the mark than I was.
I remember when I was 18 and knew everything. I remember when my kids were 18 and knew everything. I also remember when they turned about 25 and decided that I wasn’t as dumb as a rock.
dad- you’re just intimidated because i’m intelligent, funny, and adorable. i get my hardheadedness from you. don’t worry about me though, i can handle my own and you know this.
cranky- i’ll definitely have a career in journalism. i’ve been published 7 times. i’m also one of those if i want it i get it, and i want to write for the new york times.
If you want to write for the New York Times, practice your punctuation and grammar until it becomes reflexive. Proper use of capital letters, when to spell a number and when to use the symbol for a number, all of this — and more — should be automatic for you.
Like it or not, fair or not, these days your curriculum vitae includes everything you’ve written on the Internet.
An editor, faced with choosing one new writer out of literally hundreds (if not thousands) of hopefuls is going to pick the one whom potentially gives him the least amount of (editing) work to do.
If your writing history shows a consistent need of heavy editing, said editor is going to overlook you in favour of any other writer who displays less of a need for continuous editing.
Free advice; take it, or not, as you will.
LawDog
lawdog- Thanks for the advice. I’m working on my grammar and punctuation and what not. Most of the time, I have the spelling and capitalization correct but i do use a lot of run on sentences.
Hello Bonnie,
Besides what LawDog said, there’s something else you need to consider.
You can say “I’m awesome,” “I’m intelligent,” “I’m funny,” “I’m adorable” and so forth till the cows come home. Only once you start showing those things do people actually start taking you seriously. Until then, you’re all sizzle and no steak.
I’m sure you sincerely believe all the things you say about yourself. That’s the problem. At 18, you don’t know half as much as you think you do. You need to be much more open to what others think of you than to what you think of yourself. (Yes, I know the latter makes much more pleasant listening – for a little while anyway, until reality comes crashing down on you.) Smoke alarms never make the sounds you want to hear, and their timing is just awful for your beauty sleep…but they can save your life.
Incidentally, when you say that if you want something you get it and when you brag about being adorable, that makes you sound like you think people will give you whatever you want just because they like you. Trust me, the world does not work that way. Not even the New York Times. (Not to mention that bragging without substance makes you less adorable.)
Good luck to you Bonnie,
Jeff Deutsch
PS: As of now, your blog has exactly one follower: You. Think about that.
LawDog gives good advice.
I’d add: set up another blog as a professional on-line presence. Use some form of your real name — the one you’d want to appear in your byline. List contact info, and tell people you’re willing to freelance.
Link to your previous publishing (if available on-line, if not, list them in standard APA format, giving the publication name, date, full title, etc. (Note: fair or not, some publications are considered weightier than others. An article in a local newspaper is better than an high school newspaper or yearbook — which is better than something in an informal indie publication. There are some publications that it’s not wise to list on a CV, even if it counts as a publishing credit. (For example: I have a student who lost an interview because he stupidly listed a letter in a porn mag. It was a well-written letter, but the subject matter called his judgment into question.)
Create a writing schedule for this professional blog, and stick with it. (Once a week is a reasonable rate, and will establish that you can work a deadline.)
If you’re writing newspaper-style articles, be sure that you cite outside research (if you use any). Be sure you do pay strict attention to all of the standard writing rules. If you’re writing creatively, providing rough outlines (to demonstrate that you can pace and plot) is useful.
I’ve seen this forestall the inevitable Google search.
Mostly Cajun, I suppose these are the things I have to look forward to with KatyBeth. Teenagers, in their drive to assert their own individuality, will often do rash things that mortify their parents. Hey, at least she didn’t change her name to B’ahnee when she turned eighteen…
Bonnie, being outspoken and opinionated are sometimes admirable qualities. When overdone, they are simply a convenient excuse for rudeness. You may think that what you did was simply stating your opinion, but let me point out to you why it was little more than rude trollery:
You voiced your displeasure on your Dad’s blog first. Then, you clicked through the links from his commenters, or scrolled down his blogroll, to see what they wrote on their blogs. Your comment was your very first on my blog. If you’ve ever been there before, it was as a lurker.
In other words, you went looking for a fight. That is the essence of being a troll. Continuing the comments after people have told you their unwelcome compounds the rudeness.
I could have fought you. I as much as warned you about what could happen in my post. Yet when you refused to heed those warnings, it became obvious that you really didn’t understand how ugly this fight can get. So I deleted your comments. You as much as challenged people, on the internet, to find out who you are, and to stalk/harass/kill you. That is foolish in the extreme. The fight you were inviting ain’t what you’re used to from high school, dear.
You can be found in a five minute Google search. Given enough time and the proper skills and motivation, your social security numbers, bank accounts, and God knows what else can be accessed. I would never do that, but I have no idea what some of my readers might do. I don’t know everyone that reads my blog.
When someone seems intent on pushing a fight they can’t win, one that may see them seriously hurt, their opponent can do two things: engage them and win the fight, or walk away. For me, winning the fight would have been the minuscule pride of knowing that I slapped down an 18-year-old girl on the internet. Or I could save her from herself, and simply walk away. I chose to walk away.
If you prove that you’re mature enough to sit at the grownup’s table, I’ll stop deleting them. But until then, every rude or challenging thing you post immediately goes into the trash bin. Rail about the unfairness of it as much as you like; being called childish by an 18-year-old with zero life experience doesn’t wound me much.
On another note, you have no idea who I am or what my life experience is, yet you presume to lecture me on a subject with which I am intimately familiar. Like I said in my comments, I’ve dealt with more death last week than you’ve seen in your entire life. If you want to see the entire spectrum of what death, and the response to it can be like, read the posts in my Greatest Hits to gain an inkling of understanding.
Finally, you’d do well to heed the advice you’ve been given. I’m a published author with two books to my credit. I also get paid to write print and online articles and columns. Crank Professor teaches literature and composition for a living, and LawDog is one of the more respected writers in the blogosphere. If he isn’t a published author himself one day, I’ll be surprised.
I applaud your ambition to be a writer some day. Keep working at it, and perhaps you will. But keep in mind that, on the internet, you are what you write, both in the structure of that writing and in the ideas and impressions you convey. While the New York Times might not place a premium on accuracy, circumspection and objectivity in the writers it currently employs, you never know when their journalistic standards might improve. Your presence on the web needs to meet that standard.
Oh, AD. :)
I’m CrankY. Given that I’ve popped out three of my own, I’ve demonstrated my lack of crank. (Physical crank, at any rate. Metaphorically speaking is a different story.)
I admire Cajun, AD, Crank, LawDog and all the rest of you attempting to teach dear darling little Bonnie a lesson.
But just remember, at 18, she knows more than all of you. She’s smarter than all you. And she’s better than all of you. Or so she thinks.
Cause, the wisdom and joy you share with us each and every day is hard fought, gained from the bottom of whatever shoe stepped on you that day, and hoarded like the priceless gift it is. It comes from life experience where people have hurt you, attempted to beat you down, and done everything in their power to ruin you. And that’s what poor little Bonnie is missing. She’s never had to fight for it and never had to work for it.
One day, many years from now, she’ll see that the people she’s bashing now are pretty stinking wise. I only hope you are all around to enjoy that moment.
“Oh, AD. :)
I’m CrankY.”
Oh yeah. I suppose the “Crank Professor” would teach sex ed, wouldn’t she? ;)
Wish I could get my kids to blog. Then at least I’d know what they’re up to.
Keep at it, Bonnie! Develop the writing habit, and build those skills. Writing ability needs no advertisement; it IS an advertisement… for you!
Jeffrey- the funny adorable inteligent comment was directed to my father, and he definitely knows all of those things are true (after all, i take after him). as for the “i’m awesome” thing, it’s an inside joke type of thing. yes, i am 18. i do listen to what other people think and often take it into consideration, but sometimes i honestly don’t care. you misunderstood the whole “getting what i want” thing. i meant when i set a goal, i achieve it. and as for the following myself, i thought it was funny.
Cranky- i’m so above high school newspapers, i’ve been published in a local paper several times read by over 100,000 people and have received both great feedback on all my articles. I was first published at the age of 16. my dad has also suggested i make a writing schedule and i plan to. thanks for the advice.
ambulance driver- honestly, i was not looking for a fight. yes, i did comment out of anger and outrage because i find it horribly disrespectful to make fun of the dead, no matter who they are. as for the whole “getting nasty” thing, i’m not concerned. i don’t have my adress listed anywhere, i don’t have any bank accounts, and the most unflattering picture anyone could possibly find is one of me playing xbox. and besides if anyone (which i doubt anyone would) tried to harm me by coming to my house, my dad and stepfather are both fans of the second amendment, so i’m definitely not worried about that. i didn’t want to intentionally start a fight but the other commenters gave me so much fuel and i couldn’t resist. i’d like to sincerely apologize for being a “troll”.
Genevieve- i never have claimed to know more than anyone on here, but thanks for assuming =] also, i may only be 18 but i have plenty of life experience, i won’t go into it on here, but you shouldn’t make assumptions.
George.w- thanks for the support.
“I didn’t want to intentionally start a fight but the other commenters gave me so much fuel and I couldn’t resist. I’d like to sincerely apologize for being a “troll”.”
No worries, Bonnie. It’s all water under the bridge.
I remember (faintly) when I was 18. I knew everything then, too.
I’ll be damned if I can remember it all now, though.
I thought I was pretty smart back when I was eighteen, too… you know, when the earth had started cooling :)
Bonnie, things are going to change a lot for you, I hope your writing goes well. Look back on these comments in 10-15 years, and see if you still feel the same way.
Read Ambrose Bierce’s works–especially his humorous short stories. There is no writer I’ve found in all of American literature who so perfectly uses the language. He’ll expand your vocabulary, but his word counts are the absolute minimum. You’ll develop some callouses on your sensibilities reading his stuff, like “A Cargo of Cat” or “An Imperfect Conflagration.” The Devil’s Dictionary is a fine piece, too. Bierce is a scalpel to most writers’ hatchets.
Course, MC’s prose ain’t too shoddy either.
Ambition and clearly identified goals are extremely admirable traits in anyone, especially someone of a younger age. The need to automatically reply to every/any comment…not so much. As I used to tell my step-son (on a regular basis until he “got it”) comment from an adult is NOT license/authority for an ‘automatic mouth’. His biggest “problem” was that he was/is a very highly intelligent individual but thought he knew it all based on his very limited life experience. (at 19 he beat out 220 others, all of whom already had their degrees, for a very nice job doing what he loves—computer “stuff”—he’s the techno geek, not me) Unfortunately that also fed his ego. Over the past year he has slowly started to learn that his older (and much more experienced) co-workers (not to mention clients) all seem to agree with one of the tenents I tried to instill in him, it’s not necessarily what you say but how you say it. Adopting an attitude of superiority will quickly find you declared ‘persona non grata’.
My only other ‘bone’ to pick was the comment about if someone were to go looking for you your “daddy and step-daddy” would protect you. Yes, they probably would. IF the ‘attack’ were to take place in their presence. But you also have adopted an attitude that you can do whatever you want and others will fight your fight for you!?!?!?! Considering who your father is that attitude is extremely surprising to me as it is very reminiscent of a life-time dimmocrat. Oh, and as for a psycho not being able to find you?? You ARE dreaming! Your address not listed? No bank acct? No problem. Tracing you back through your IP is easy enough. Everyone knows you’re MC’s daughter and he’s VERY well known. How many “Bonnies” are there that have, by your own supplied information, written for the local newspaper? Again, the area is well listed in your and MC’s postings… think about it.
I do applaud your ambitions and your willingness to take a stand on an issue that is important to you. You, however, need to study some of the brilliant tacticians of the past that all knew when to fight and when to re-group. Apply your intelligence, engage your enthusiasm and achieve your goals (others can give you fantastic career advice) but for your own sake, think BEFORE you write.
Bonnie, Just as an example, HERE ( http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=399203 ) is the sort of thing that can happen if you screw with the wrong people on the ‘net.
This kid did something stupid, then got mouthy. Within hours, his entire life — his pics, his house, his job — EVERYTHING — came crashing down around him. What do you think will happen in the future whenever a potential employer googles his name?
I’ve never met your Daddy, but I am 1000% sure he’s my soul-twin, and that you’re likewise much like my gifted 18 year old.
She too isn’t as aware as she should be of what a sick, dangerous place the world can be — and that’s my fault. I pray every day she doesn’t end up learning the hard way.
You’ve been given a lot of good advice — you’d be wise to heed it…
DD