Who Am I Again?

Mood: Out of Sorts (a generic catch all for feeling all sorts of negative things: frustration, discontent, irritation, etc. for no real reason)

What I'm Watching: COPS (Dude. Don't run when the cop stops you. You're going to get caught and the cop is going to be really ticked you made him run. He has a tazer. This will not end well for you.)

Carol over at Carol's Prints recently posted a very insightful and thought provoking entry about branding and blogging. I started my blog because it sounded like a fun way to share everything from the randomly sarcastic thoughts that occasionally nearly constantly run through my mind to the adventures the hubs and I invariably have whenver we attempt to travel.

I never thought about "branding" myself because, really, who cares about me? (see, I'm not completely narcissistic). The most I ever hoped for was that someone might stumble on my blog and maybe find it mildly amusing. It never even entered my mind that my blog would eventually be connected to my writing world because, at the time, my writing world existed only in a very dark room at the very back corner of my mind (I kept it hidden behind high school algebra because, really, who's going to look there?).

Since that time I've connected with a wonderful bunch of writers through the interwebs (special thanks to the #amwriting/#amwritingparty crew over at Twitter and all the super cool writer's blogs that I follow) and have slowly brought my writerly self out into the bright sunlight of the real world. Now? Thanks to Carol's musings I realize that the parts of my personality that come across in my blog/tweets/general internet presence may ultimately used to define who I am. Eventually agents (I hope) and maybe even editors (fingers crossed) may Google my name and what they find here will, for them, represent "me". My brand.

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what that means. Like Popeye, "I am who I am" and I think that tends to come through in my on-line world. Sometimes I'm snarky and sarcastic. Sometimes I'm stubborn and (obviously) easily irritated by general stupidity. Most of the time I've got a sense of humor about the world and, perhaps more important, about myself. Often I'm passionate, compassionate, kind and loving (I swear!). Occasionally, I'm all of these things at once (which makes life fun for the hubs, I assure you).

Since I generally believe in being who I am, for better or worse, I don't think that "crafting" a brand for myself is going to be a realistic option for me. So I guess my brand is just plain old me...flaws and all. The most I can hope for is that anyone who stumbles across my little corner of the interwebs will be able to take me for who I am. If not? Well, then I suppose that they probably weren't the agent, publisher, editor or internet stalker for me anyway.