Blog Gentrified and Remixed: Speak. Your. Mind.

BLOG | Naima Lett

“Blog closed!” could’ve read the sign I posted last year. After a couple of years of monthly postings to update supporters, I realized, “I’m not saying much,” and shut it down.

That’s a strange phenomenon for a soon-to-be published author who makes a living speaking and writing  and who always has something to say.

Let’s be clear: I don’t always voice what I have to say, but I always have something percolating.

Even though I write daily, that percolation wasn’t translating into my blog. I was blogging, not out of necessity to share, but out of obligation to the team who said, “You must blog!”

It’s the same reason I had opened a Twitter account and wasn’t tweeting. Introverted-Me didn’t understand why I needed to share with the world-wide-web, “omg! i’m @ pinkberry in marina del rey & they’re out of shaved milk chocolate for my mango soft serve! #disappointed!”

So, what changed?

Recently, in reflection (as we reorganize our business), I asked my wonderful husband Kevin, “What do you think I do best?”

“Speak your mind,” he replied, not even looking up from doctoring his MiKo keyboard-computer.

Three words. That simple. Speak. Your. Mind.

Friends chimed in with their own descriptions (Everyone has opinions. Just ask.): [You're] candid, direct, honest, transparent, spiritual, focused, straightforward, passionate, unafraid to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, always giving and speaking into people’s lives.

Hmmm… As I pondered ‘and the survey says’, I thought back over the month leading up to sharing at Story Chicago, in which I was a guest blogger (FaithVillage: A Hollywood Story), participated in a blog interview (Alece Ronzino’s Grit & Glory), and was mentioned in several other blogs.

Blogs galore. It got me to thinking: There must be something to this blog thing that I didn’t get the first time around.

If I was going to build back into the blog landscape, I needed a total reconstruction. No, not just restructuring… I needed a blog gentrification.

Talk about not liking a word. I have little love for the word gentrify. It evokes images of less affluent citizens being evicted from public housing that’s turned into swanky, studio lofts with man-made reservoirs and coffee houses (i.e. Gentrification Nation). I’m all for progress, don’t get me wrong, but where are the families moved? Anyone?

I digress. We can debate the pros and cons and how ugly gentrification feels, but for the sake of where I was in blog-world, that’s the word that kept coming to mind. I needed to demolish the past and start from scratch. This was no face lift or botox or nip and tuck. This was gut it and start over.

Academic-Me decided to go back to basics. So, I looked up the definition of BLOG: a web site containing the writer’s own experiences, observations, opinions, etc. In other words, [my translation, not Webster's] a website where the writer speaks his/her mind.

Ahhhh… A different perspective! You mean to tell me, a blog is simply a venue for me to do what my husband and friends already say I do best? Speak my mind?!

Oh, it’s on!

But no way I’m calling this thing Blog Gentrified. Are you kidding?!
What about Blog Reopened? Boring, right?
Blog Resuscitated? Wait, was I dead?
How about Blog Remixed. OK, I can work with that.

Welcome to my Blog Remixed, where I promise, if nothing else, to Speak. My. Mind.
And where I invite you to do the same: Speak. Your. Mind.
Lett’s do this!

Naima Lett

Naima loves bringing stories to life, believes everyone should find a reason to dance daily, and savors every bite of her grandmother's bread pudding & sweet potato pie.

• alece November 10, 2011 at 9:11 am

  glad you’re back to blogging: naima remixed! gonna be good!

  • Naima Lett November 10, 2011 at 9:43 am

    Thanks Alece! You all inspired me to get back in the mix. Love yours @ http://gritandglory.com