I've never really been cool anyway

The Blog Age is over, I hear. So passe. No one reads them. Twitter and Facebook have dulled our attention spans to a sentence or two.

So why start one now, long after the height?

It’s personal, of course. I created Girl Makes Fire with the intention of easing my own perfectionism. Anyone who knows me will agree that I’m hard on myself when it comes to writing. I don’t let a word out of its locked room until everything is in place. When I invite friends to be editors—and it happens with only a few—it’s deeply private and very vulnerable.

But to be perfectionistic about writing is to cut it off at the source. All too often, I let ideas slip away undeveloped because I don’t have the time or concentration to “do it right.” Opinions that—who knows?—could create change if distributed instead become rants in bars. At some point, it’s important to simply sit down and finish something—and to let someone read it.

Consider Girl Makes Fire my personal writing bootcamp.

This blog is personal. It’s also political. It’s an opportunity to publicly engage with my reactions to books, articles, and news stories. Oh yeah, and life.  The name of the blog, Girl Makes Fire, comes from my sense of myself as one who brings things together. By sharing, I aim to create engagement. By responding, I aim to synthesize experiences.  And whether or not blogs are uncool, anything that can be posted on facebook can drag people into a dialogue.

Flint. Tinder. I am the catalyst, the grated-against steel. Don’t all artists aim to hold these cold objects in their hands, and somehow make a magic flame?

Here I go, bending into the digital ghetto with a megaphone.