AUTHOR: Marty, a.k.a. canape TITLE: Respect the blog DATE: 2/01/2009 09:13:00 PM ----- BODY:
"I may be just a little fairy, but I have a big vocabulary!"

It's my favorite line in Abby Cadabby's song "I Love Words." Christopher and I watch that video on the Sesame Street website at least three times a week. He sits on my lap and bounces while I sing along.

Although I haven't followed the 'no TV before 2' rule, we read far more than we watch TV. He gets about 15-20 minutes of Sesame Street in the afternoons, and on Sunday morning, we usually watch a weird little show called "Lomax, the Hound of Music." However, in this house, books rule. I want for my children to love words as much as I do.

I love reading words. I love writing words. I love prose, poetry, song lyrics. I will read anything. Cereal boxes, recipes, old letters that I've read 100 times before - it doesn't matter. I am fascinated by how words fit together like puzzle pieces to create exactly the right picture. Even when the words are crammed together like clowns in a tiny car and don't quite seem to work? I still love them.

I don't pretend to be a writer. Well, maybe I do, but not a good one. A few months ago, I took an online creative non-fiction class. The instructor was quite good, and I enjoyed the assignments very much. Truth is, I don't have the discipline to be a good writer right now. I would much rather sit down at my blog and type out what I could pay someone $200 an hour to listen to than craft rough draft after rough draft.

However.

The importance of these words cannot be discounted. I have found my words splogged across other sites. Ideas I have had and started here continue on without a mention of where they began. It's not cool. It's disrespectful. It needs to stop. Especially the particularly nasty sites where some perky titted naked chick poses above one of my posts about my baby. Creepy and wrong.

Kelly is spelling it out. Her writing made for a lovely article in The Times online. Only they didn't link to her. They mentioned her, but used huge amounts of her material without even a single link. No respect.

Mommyblogging is a radical act. We've discussed it. We all know it. We are telling the stories of motherhood in a new day and age. Connecting across boundaries that once were too far and too wide to reach. There is power in our writing and in our community.

It's time for us to respect ourselves and demand it from others too.

Respect the blog.








Go on over to Don Mills Diva and join the revolution. You deserve it.

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----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Don Mills Diva DATE:Sunday, February 1, 2009 at 10:11:00 PM EST Perfect opening line - write on girl! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous whymommy DATE:Monday, February 2, 2009 at 10:35:00 AM EST Write on! indeed. Absolutely. I can't believe what happened to her! ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous thedailywit DATE:Monday, February 2, 2009 at 3:17:00 PM EST Great post. I'm not a blogging mommy (blogging daddy though), but I support your movement.

I've never generated anything that anyone would want to misappropriate, but through the power of Google and link tracking, I found a guy debating something I had written without inviting me to the debate.

When I visited his site and introduced him to a sometimes troublesome concept called "facts," he changed his tune.

It's a wild world.

The Daily Wit f/k/a supercynic ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Clifford DATE:Monday, February 2, 2009 at 9:56:00 PM EST Paragraph 7. Serious? And I thought I...er, nevermind. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Ginaagain DATE:Monday, February 9, 2009 at 10:30:00 PM EST "Especially the particularly nasty sites where some perky titted naked chick poses above one of my posts about my baby. Creepy and wrong."

Eww, creepy and wrong indeed! What in the world do you do about that? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Melanie DATE:Thursday, February 12, 2009 at 4:21:00 PM EST Great post! You speak the truth. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Elizabeth DATE:Sunday, February 22, 2009 at 1:33:00 AM EST visiting via DMD. I agree about the creepyness. Why would someone do that? Couldn't they write their own mommy story for their porn site? ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:Anonymous Anonymous DATE:Sunday, December 27, 2009 at 3:13:00 AM EST Well I acquiesce in but I contemplate the brief should acquire more info then it has. ----- --------