Here is the transcription of my most recent video blog:
(And here’s the audio on AnchorFM)
Hey everybody, it’s Queen Mab here along with my beautiful fake plant, and I am going to talk to you today about Internet challenges and my experiences with doing them.
I was pretty firmly opposed to Internet challenges on the basis of two failed attempts that I had. I think it was probably 2011 or 2012 – I tried to do thirty blog posts in thirty days…yeah…that didn’t happen. And then two years ago, I was inspired by seeing this Instagram gal who was taking thirty selfies in thirty days and doing it as like a body positivity thing, and I was like “I’m gonna do that, except I’m going to do it about my hair,” because my hair drives me crazy, and if I take pictures of it for thirty days and post them on [my] Instagram, then maybe I’ll start to feel better about it.” Guess what? I did NOT feel better about it. And I felt embarrassed about posting all these pictures of myself, and then I got one weird comment from one sketchy dude, and I’m like “Yeah, no…we’re not doing that again.”
So last year, I heard about this Internet challenge called “Inktober.” My really good friend who likes to draw told me about it. And for some reason, I was like “I WANNA DO THAT!” So I did it, okay. And the whole time that I was doing these drawings…the way that Inktober works is they have this list of words, and you do one drawing every day in ink for the month of October, okay? So I did it, and it was really fun. And yeah, I drew some things that I didn’t like, but I also drew some things that I really like, and I’m really excited about. The other part of it is you’re supposed to share your art with someone, and I didn’t want to post it on Instagram, because you know, I have to stay true to my brand, and you know, I’m not an artist, I’m a musician, right? So I didn’t put it on there. I just shared it with my friend, and…I loved it! And I was so glad that I did it!
And then the next challenge that I did was National Novel Writing Month. And I had been wanting to do this forever, okay? And last year, I finally gave myself permission in the midst of all the U.S. election craziness and quarantine craziness, I said, “I’m gonna DO IT!” And I did it! I wrote the 50,000 words in the month of November. And it was hard. And it was painful. I have to write longhand; I can’t type at a computer, because if I do, I just delete everything, so this makes me commit, okay? And I exacerbated an elbow injury that I have from drumming because of all the writing. So that was unfortunate, but now I have fifty thousand words that I didn’t have before. So I’m wanting to do that again this year. I’m a little worried about it, though, because I want to finish that story, and I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to finish it.
Now, this vlogging thing that I’m doing, this is a “challenge” that I learned about from the Tim dudebro guy…I’m so embarrassed that I’m blanking on his last name…um, the guy whose webinar that I was in about blogging, and he said, “Okay, do your video blogging for a hundred days. And do your video blog, and then transcribe it, and post it on your website, and then also release it as an AnchorFM podcast.” Okay, so I’m doing all of these things. And I don’t know if I want to hold myself really firmly to that 100 days commitment, and yet, at the same time, there’s a part of me that wants to do it. And that’s kind of how I was about both Inktober and National Novel Writing Month. I was like, “Mmmmm…I don’t know…I feel really guilty for doing this,” but I’m gonna do it. So, we’ll see if I make it, but that’s the plan. And it’s probably going to take another video for me to explain all the hang ups that I have about doing this…and I will do that video…but in the meantime, if you like me, you can like this video. You can comment. You can subscribe. If you don’t like it, well, there’s lots of other talking heads on YouTube for you to go listen to, so…go watch one of them. I think that’s it. Bye!