Writing About Writing (or Blogging About Blogging)

I mentioned yesterday that I recently had an article published in Eriesense magazine (and made available online). I was happy to have three different people text me with positive reviews saying that they saw/read the article, but one said specifically that she could “hear my voice” as she read it. That, to me, was the ultimate compliment to a writer, even better than “I liked it” or “It was great.”

It’s one thing to be able to write well. But it takes a lot of work, years practice and usually a lot of failed experiments before a writer develops a definitive style of his or her own. As thankful as I am to have received that compliment, I’m not there yet. I can only hope I’m at least on my way but who knows. I’ve dabbled In everything from poetry to journalism, ad copy to sports writing, and everything in between.

I remember a professor at Mercyhurst College once asked me (and the rest of the class) where we saw ourselves on the spectrum of our writing, essentially asking us to grade ourselves. I rightfully noted how much I had progressed and matured as a writer from my senior year of high school to my senior year of college and concluded with a fair amount of certainty that I was almost a complete writer.

Wrong answer.

As I near the second anniversary of my college graduation, I believe my writing is somewhat better and more polished. Unfortunately, I’ve also realized that I’m still in the very early stages of the learning curve. I’m learning that writers, unlike professional athletes (my standard by which I judge most things, for better or worse), do not peak in their mid-late 20s.

I’m also actively combating the great writer’s dilemma of never being satisfied with what I write. In the blogosphere, the scrutiny on editing is certainly lessened, but I still often look back and see missed opportunities with things I wrote or things I didn’t write.

But back to the idea of voice. I suppose the hardest part of finding my voice as a writer is not knowing who my audience is. With this blog it’s not so bad because it functions as a de facto journal, and I think that sort of confessional style of writing comes most naturally to me.

I have more trouble when it comes to my sports writing at MattHubert.com and now at Blog Talk BayHawk. Neither blog has much of a readership (not yet anyway), and that makes it hard. If you don’t know who you’re writing for, it’s hard to try to connect with them.

So what I find is that I end up writing with this sort of half-news, half-personal style that I just don’t think is working. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to be an ESPN reporter and other times I feel like I’m being a college kid writing a column for the school paper. Neither is really what I think I need to be in the end if either blog is ever to reach my ultimate goals of being entertaining, informative and read on a regular basis by a collection of semi-dedicated followers.

James Joyce differs from Edgar Allen Poe, and Bill Simmons differs from Rick Reilly. I’m not quite sure where Matt Hubert fits in there, but I’m trying to figure It out. It’s a journey without a set destination, but it’s a trip worth taking. And so I’m thankful to everyone who’s reading my work along the way.

An Overdue Life Update, Freelance Article Published

Let me start by thanking and then apologizing to anyone who has been checking here for updates recently to no avail. The usual combination of work, laziness, and my ergonomic disinclination to write a lot have kept the updates few and far between.

I have, however, continued to do the weekly Winning Hand Sportscast with my brother Mike over at MattHubert.com. If you don’t know, it’s my sports blog, and the posts there are slightly more regular than they are at apt writing.

And being the never-quite-satisfied-with-one-great-idea-but-happy-to-start-a-new-one guy that I am, I actually created a third blog called Blog Talk BayHawk mainly because it’s hard to draw attention to MattHubert.com because I’m essentially trying to cover the same stuff that everyone else is covering. With Blog Talk BayHawk, I’m focusing on a much narrower subject, the Erie BayHawks. Of course, I happened to start the blog just as the season ended, so it’s a little tough to come up with material, but feel free to check it out or refer a basketball-minded friend who might care to read it.

As for my apartment living, which is how this blog started, I really don’t have any major updates. I’ve been there for more than six months now. It’s become familiar to me, so that’s nice.

I’ve got a pretty good cooking routine—nothing gourmet, but a good assortment of things I like that usually gets eaten once and then reused later in the week, which saves me from having to cook every night. My staples include: BBQ meatloaf, shake ‘n bake chicken, steak on the George Foreman grill, cheese ravioli and meatballs, and my Mexican mayhem meal, which is essentially taco flavored meat buried in some assortment of cheese or cheese sauce, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, tomatoes, Mexican rice, refried beans—all heaped on to (and falling out of) a soft taco shell.

My cleaning routine is a bit less defined, but I try to keep things in order. I never was the best at getting around to dusting, so that’s occasionally an issue, and my tiny kitchen floor could probably use a mopping (but I can’t justify buying something because it would take like two sweeps of a mop to get the whole floor!)

My neighbors are generally inconspicuous, it’s a very quiet living quarters for housing upwards of a dozen tenants. But that suits me well. Quiet is good for me. And I generally keep busy enough between work, cooking, the gym and watching TV (getting the DVR was probably the best decision I made about my apartment) that I’m too occupied to be overwhelmed by the solitude. Again, I’ve always been really good at being independent.

But I like to think everyone finds my life as important as I do. So with that, I’m now on Twitter. Follow me at twitter.com/Matt411 and you can get all the Matt info you ever needed such as my in-the-moment thoughts on the NBA playoff game I’m watching, song lyrics stuck in my head and other miscellaneous minutia that you could probably do without. But what the heck…if you think I'm interesting enough, and some people do, I'd be honored.

And finally, I recently had my freelance article published in Erie Insurances’s policyholder magazine. If you don’t get the magazine or just love the convenience of an Internet distraction, you can also read the article online.