Jen Russum

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My Big Sexy Paper

Tonight in class my teacher told me that my research on mom blogs could easily become a “big, sexy, publishable paper.” While my favorite word in that phrase is “sexy” (because how many people would consider mom blogging sexy??? Except it IS…there are some hot mamas out there who have carried 2-4 children in their bodies and still look AMAZING) the most important word in the phrase is “publishable.”

Getting published. It’s what being a grad student and a professor is all about. Being published means getting job, keeping a job, earning tenure, etc. It’s important. And it’s scary. I don’t like to think about trying to get published because it seems daunting and depressing with lots of denial letters (probably e-mails these days, let’s be honest, why waste ink?) and recommended revisions. And the biggest problem is that before you can get rejected or accepted or “accepted with revisions” you have to actually think of something to write about. Some new “sexy” topic that not too many people have already written about…

That seemed really difficult… until tonight. Apparently my topic is sexy. Mothers who gain power through writing online is a hot topic. It’s not like my paper is ready to be published. I mean, it’s not even written yet. I have no idea where this project is going… but it’s encouraging to know it might go somewhere. It makes me want to work even harder at it, knowing that there is a SMALL chance that I could publish a paper during grad school. And even if this hypothetical, sexy, yet-to-be-written paper never gets published, it still excites me that a legitimate interest of mine – mommy bloggers – is also a legitimate reserach area in the rhetoric community at large. Here is just a sampling of my research summary that I presented in class tonight. This is the conlcusion in which I explain my interest in my chosen community:

“Although I am not a mom right now, I hope to be in the future. As a new wife, I stumbled across a few mom blogs this past fall when looking for new recipes online to fulfill my new wifely cooking duties. I was instantly fascinated by these women who network, write, and work from home. Although I will probably never be a full-fledged stay at home mom, I hope to work part-time and devote a good deal of my time to nurturing my own kids someday. I honestly did not really realize this mom blog world existed until a few months ago, but I am eager to learn more about it this semester. Some of it seems silly to me, of course. I can’t imagine writing a full blog posting about going to the grocery store or getting the mail (and I have just recently stumbled across a housewife parody blog that I find highly entertaining), but at the same time I admire these thrifty, creative women, their business pursuits, their honesty about the hardships of motherhood, and their devotion to their families.”
To all the sexy mom bloggers out there, thank you for giving me some sexy research…
http://www.flythroughourwindow.com/2011/01/besides-cleaning-closets/

P.S. Apparently when you put the word “sexy” in your blog, Google places creepy online dating/sex forums ads in your sidebar. Sorry. Please do NOT click.

Comments

  1. 1. I TOTALLY clicked on the HOTT link and the AWESOME link, hoping my body would be at the end of that click. Dang it. #needtogetinshape for Jen's blog

    2. Google ads – love 'em and hate 'em all at the same time.

    3. So excited to read your paper.

    4. Launching my own mom-business tomorrow on my blog. Watch out. 🙂

  2. pretty excited and interested to see what you discover as you delve into "mommy blogs." i've thought about the subject quite a bit recently (seeing as though i'm one of these women of whom you speak). here are my thoughts (since you asked)…

    i now consider being a wife and mom my full-time job. however, for 2 years, i was a full time teacher. i worked in an elementary school, part of a public school district. there was community. when i had questions about how to do report cards, i could ask the teacher across the hall. when i wanted to see how another teacher had taught her students about the butterfly life cycle, i could look at our school district's website that contained curriculum for all grade levels and all schools.

    but now i'm a mom, and it can feel like i'm on an island. i don't wake up every day and leave the house to join my community of fellow mommies. so i think moms have begun to use the blog world as a way of creating their own community. we ask and answer questions about diapers, teething, discipline, recipes, breastfeeding, etc. So many of these things can seem almost laughable to write an entire blog entry about… until it becomes your full time job to do these things. then suddenly there's nothing more important.

    so anyway… i think you're cool. i think your idea is cool. looking forward to seeing where it leads you.