Saturday, October 06, 2007

Evolution meme!!!

The evolution meme has finally arrived at Letters from a broad!!! (via Godless on the Wasatch Front)

In this meme, I explain how my blog has evolved, in five steps, giving examples.

1. The Utah Valley Monitor days: Some may recall that this blog started out as a column in a student paper called the Utah Valley Monitor (which I was invited to write as a BYU alum). That's where I got my crazy URL that I have never bothered to change. So from the beginning this blog was written with the idea of having a Mormon theme and audience, thus as light, friendly communication between Mormons and atheists. Most of my primary topics (motherhood, living in France, book reviews, Mormonism/ex-Mormonism) trace back to my earliest columns. Here's a blog entry that really captures this stage: Cultural Mormon.

2. The RfM period: While this blog was still an archive for my column (before the Monitor went belly-up), I used to like to read and post to the popular "Recovery from Mormonism" message board. (Just for fun -- it's not like I felt like my Mormon past was something I needed to "recover" from...) There I discovered that some other exmos (like JLO/substrate and Sideon) also had blogs, so we linked together to form a little network called "Outer Blogness." For a while, then, I was writing posts tailored specifically to the RfM audience. A good example of this was cults vs. cult-like behavior where I thought I'd have a little fun with the RfM'ers by challenging their beloved stance that Mormonism is a "cult".

3. The "digging through the archives" days: (This was actually more-or-less concurrent with the RfM phase.) I figured that my blog was a good place to post the "best of" projects I'd done years earlier including mathematical artwork, a childhood novel, a Student Review article on "Why I Hate Church", naked comics, and me on Star Trek.

4. The "enter politics" wave: For a long time, I'd been deliberately avoiding controversial political issues because, well, I wanted everyone to like me. After a while, though, I got bored of that stance and decided to dive in and write about politics even if some readers may disagree with me. A good example of this would be my first porn-and-feminism article yes means yes.

5. The novel-goes-live!!! Before starting my Utah Valley Monitor column (see #1 above), I had just finished writing my novel Exmormon. From the beginning of this blog/column I talked about the novel and promoted it here. Then one fateful day I decided that I am so addicted to in love with blogging and the Internet that I would like to give it my first-born novel, as a serial. So, since the beginning of this year, I've been illustrating and posting my novel little by little on its own site here. So far we're on part 3, and having a great time with it. (Luckily it has nine parts, so it won't end too quickly...)

So that's my story! I guess now comes the tagging part. Unfortunately it's a little tricky to find someone who hasn't already done this one and is in the mood to do it. I'm kind of tempted to tag Sideon since his blog covers the same time period and has had some related evolution (plus the last time he tagged me for a meme, I didn't quite get around to doing the meme, oops...). Then, while I'm at it, perhaps some of the other charter members of "Outer Blogness": La, Notamormon, Gunner, Eric, plus some other early members Rebecca, Mason is free and Bull.

8 comments:

beatdad said...

My mother insisted that there is no such thing as a "cultural Mormon."

I told her, in my know it all tone, that "you are like a tree denying that you and the trees around you are part of the forest."

I love Saturday's warrior too. Do you eat green Jello when you listen to it?

Unknown said...

Hey, C.L., sorry for inflicting you with this meme. It sounds like you saw it coming, though, and that bears out in your post.

On a side note, I just read your "yes means yes" post and I loved it! Yay! I can watch porn!

In all seriousness, though ... nevermind, I'll comment on the original. :-)

Anyway, sorry to go off topic. Great response to the meme.

C. L. Hanson said...

Hey Wayne!!!

No, but I should. Actually I think green jello shots would be the most appropriate. ;^)

Hey John!!!

Yeah, I saw this one on a few other blogs, so I'd kind of been thinking about it... :D

The Sinister Porpoise said...

as you're not tagging me, I'm busy right now...

C. L. Hanson said...

Hey Sinister Porpoise!!!

I meant to tag you too -- since you were also a charter member of "Outer Blogness" -- but I dashed off my tag list too quickly. I also missed Cynthia Bagley. If you're interested in being tagged, I'd be curious to see your evolution... :D

The Sinister Porpoise said...

I don't think I was there when it started, at least not intentionally anyway and the evolution has gone in a completely different tactic.

I've only started to break into writing at a semi-professional level. You started out there and came to the blog world.

On the other hand, since you have been reading my blog, you know that one of the major components of my time right now other than writing is a web comic still in the works with a Mormon theme.

C. L. Hanson said...

Hey Sinister Porpoise!!!

Looking at my earliest back-ups, it's true you weren't a charter member of "Outer Blogness" but you joined up fairly early on. I'm looking forward to seeing how your web comic will go -- have any of them been posted yet?

I'm practically branching out into Mormon-themed comics myself with all of the illustrations I've been drawing for my novel... :D

The Sinister Porpoise said...

well, I think the artist has gotten into Mormon culture as something as fascinatingly bizarre. I have a few rough drafts but not the money for the needed batteries to get the coffee shop photos she wants to model. We will probably have the one for November 20th done before the rest of the comic.