Amanda showed me the blog Fieldguided when we were living
together a couple of years ago. It was full of cats, music, flowers, clothes,
design, decorating, and beautiful photography. I was instantly hooked. It's because of this blog that I listen to Bill Callahan, shop at Robber, and grew out my bangs. A couple
months ago, I interviewed Anabela for a profile section in Vive Magazine. We
had coffee at Luna Café on Dovercourt and chatted about writing, blogging, creative
output, and how to keep a blog going for 5+ years.
This interview is in the latest issue of Vive. It was cut
down due to space restrictions, but this, right here, is the whole shebang. Thanks Vive for letting me publish this here!
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| photo by Dan Epstein |
LKM: When did you decide
to start blogging?
AC: Well, I had a Livejournal, I think I started it in like
1999. I think I worked out my blogging related kinks then—because it was very
confessional. I think it was helpful because it just prevented me from having
that same tone later on. And then I stopped after a while. But I kind of liked
having a blog that was not private and that I could just write in whenever I
wanted. And I had a couple of other ones that I just started and stopped. I was
doing a Masters Degree in library studies and I had to take a very basic
computer type of class, and they had us create a blog as an assignment. So
Fieldguided actually started when I made it for a class. But I knew that I’d
continue with it anyway, because it was something I’d been meaning to do. I had
another blog that I was sort of phasing out at the time that was more specific
and focused. But I never intended for it to be read by more than five people.
"I can make an off-hand comment about a colour of lipstick that I’m interested in and I’ll get like six different people recommending different things that I should check out. I think that’s pretty cool."
LKM: So you were
interested in writing before that? Or did the Livejournal thing just sort of
start you off?
AC: I mean I don’t consider myself a writer. I did go to
journalism school for a few years, so it’s always something that I’ve enjoyed.
But I’m not a writer. I think that’s a muscle that you have to flex from time
to time, and I’m really out of practice. I don’t do much writing on my blog.
But I’ve always enjoyed it—I used to have pen pals when I was a kid—now it’s
email pals, I guess.
LKM: If someone asked
you what kind of blog you have… I’m sure they do all the time.—how would you
describe it?
AC: It’s hard to say… it’s sort of everything. I try not to
make it about me, so I don’t really consider it a lifestyle blog. It’s not
about one thing in particular. I guess it’s about things that I like, and some
of it is my life, like photos about things in my life.
People use “lifestyle” as a catchall, but then I look at
other blogs that are more lifestyle blogs, and that’s not me. It’s not a
fashion blog, it’s not a design blog, it’s just…
LKM: I think it incorporates
a lot of those things though…
AC: Yeah. I don’t think there is a term for it, really.
LKM: You should make
one!
AC: [Ha ha] Yeah, I should. But it’s funny, a lot of the
blogs I read are about exactly that—they’re about everything and nothing in
particular.
LKM: What’s your favourite
part about having the blog part of Fiedguided?
AC: It still is really amazing to get feedback and comments
from people all over the place. I try not to pay too much attention to stats
and things like that, just because I would go crazy if I focused on that too
much. And, as I said before, I never intended to have an audience or like…
readers. And I still feel uncomfortable saying “my readers” because it’s like…
“Who are you?”
But it’s amazing. I can make an off-hand comment about a
colour of lipstick that I’m interested in and I’ll get like six different
people recommending different things that I should check out. I think that’s
pretty cool. It’s a little bit of dialogue with people all over.
"When I’m feeling most uninspired, blah, whatever, it really does help to just force myself to go somewhere and take pictures and just do something even if it’s out of my comfort zone."
LKM: What about some of
the experiences that have come from that? I know that you do lots of photo
stuff and you have your screen-printed bags, obviously. Did that come out of
having the blog?
AC: Yeah! Not just having my blog but also reading a lot of
other blogs and really feeling inspired to do something creative. Like I said,
I was doing my Masters in Library Studies and working at my current job, which
is at a library, typesetting books. I don’t really get to do anything very creative. So I was just
really inspired to do that kind of thing. Geoff has a background in art, so
that kind of helped. Everything that I know about photography is through him.
But I’ve had so many amazing opportunities, I have to admit.
Like being able to have an online store, which is really cool. And not having
to worry too much about advertising and just rely more on word of mouth. I was
invited to be in a group photography show in London last year, and I don’t
think that would have happened if I didn’t have the blog. We were invited to take
part in a handmade market in Portland a couple years ago, called Little Winter—and
that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t have the blog, because they just
wouldn’t have known who I was. So these
experiences come from fostering relationships with other bloggers, I guess. A
lot of the friends I have now, in Toronto, are through blogging. I ended up
becoming good friends with Katie who has the thank you/okay blog—she had just
moved to Toronto and was looking for Toronto blogs, and then she found me and
we met and just got along really well. And same thing with Bre from Scout Catalogue… so yeah, it’s
pretty cool. It can be difficult to make new friends, but that’s something that
I started doing back in the Livejournal days. I once drove to Manhattan to stay
with somebody that I met on Livejournal, and it was really fun! So there have
been a lot of great things that have come through it.
I know that a lot of my blogging friends have had really bad
experiences in terms of people being anonymously mean to them or whatever. But
definitely, there have been so many good things that even if there had been
more of that coming I would still really enjoy that. It would still be
worthwhile.
LKM: Have you had any negative
experiences?
AC: No. I mean I have
had the occasional anonymous comment that wasn’t very kind, but I don’t really
let those get to me, and I don’t take them seriously, because obviously they’re
just a one-dimensional. I mean, I don’t want it to happen. And sometimes I get
kind of cynical ad tired and I just don’t want to do it anymore because I don’t
have time. But I think I’ll always continue to do it.
At one point I was taking sponsorships, so I had ads on my
blog from independent businesses. And when I did that and I was taking people’s
money, I felt a lot of pressure to continue to blog constantly, like at least
three or four times a week.
LKM: Did you have to write
about specific things?
AC: No, when I set it up I never stipulated that that’s
something I would do. I didn’t really charge a lot—but I guess it’s hard to say
what’s a lot—and I had to try to make sure that people were happy with the
outcome. But I did feel a lot of… well I just did it to myself, the pressure,
because there more you post the more hits you get, the more hits they
potentially get.
LKM: And that becomes a
financial transaction.
AC: So that was a difficult period for me, in terms of angst
and like “What am I doing?” But it’s generally a really positive thig.
LKM: So on a day-to-day
basis, it’s more a positive thing than a negative thing.
AC: Yeah. If anything ever flares up it’s not a big deal.
Every once in a while I’ll have a friend look at my blog and they’ll make a
comment and I’ll feel really misunderstood. Like… “NO! You know me! That’s not
me!” when they’ve suddenly lumped me in with like this Hello Giggles cupcake
thing. And I’m like “Really? Do you know me at all?” So when that sort of thing
happens I get a little frustrated, but it’s not a big deal.
LKM: On the days when
you’re just coming up with creative content, and it’s really difficult, what do
you do for inspiration? Where do you go?
AC: I think that when it comes to that kind of thing—because
it happens all the time, like I’m just kind of constantly in a state of
that—these days I try to maintain a list of potential ideas, although I don’t
have anything on the list right now. But when it comes to that I try to… well I
try to create a lot of my own content. I really don’t like reposting things
that I’ve seen elsewhere. I did a post recently on a really cool photographer
that I hadn’t seen around very much—I hadn’t seen her blogged about on other
blogs and I thought her work was really beautiful, and that it would make my
blog look nice. So I’ll do that kind of thing from time to time, but I really
like it to make my own content. So when I’m feeling most uninspired, blah,
whatever, it really does help to just force myself to go somewhere and take
pictures and just do something even if it’s out of my comfort zone. Like a
while ago I visited the Fortnight Lingerie studio, and that was not the ideal
circumstance because they weren’t in production that day so they didn’t have a
lot going on. It was just a quiet day, and the lighting was terrible because it
was a really gloomy day and I didn’t have any special lighting with me or
anything.
LKM: But the pictures
turned out fine!
AC: But I thought it looked really nice, and it was positive
for her. But I can be really shy. And she lives at the studio, too, so asking
“Can I come to your house/studio?” But she was really great about it. That’s
something that I have to force myself to do. But then it ended up being really
great and I was glad I did it. So it
usually comes down to taking pictures, or trying to do something different. But
it’s hard!
"I try not to swear [on the blog]. You never know which fairly religious person might be into tote bags."
LKM: Have you ever been
recognized or approached by someone on the street?
AC: I have! Generally that mostly happens when we do sales,
like when we did the Holiday Market, when we’ve done a couple at The Workroom, and I always have people come
up to me and say that they read the blog—which is really nice. But in terms of
people coming up to me on the street… it has happened once or twice. One time—this
is a few summers ago—I was on Bloor Street and I had this basket on me, and I
had just written about my baskets and someone recognized me. But it doesn’t happen too often.
Since I work at U of T—in Robarts where there’s a lot of
young people around, some really… fashion blogger looking people—I’m always
worried that there might be somebody who reads my blog, because I’m just so
frumpy. Like when I go to get a coffee I just don’t look at anybody! I’m
usually grumpy at work, and I’m wearing whatever I threw on in the five minutes
I had. It’s not a big deal, but it’s in the back of my mind every once in a
while. If somebody makes eye contact for more than three seconds, I’m like…uh
oh. But that sounds really arrogant! It doesn’t really happen. And I think when
you’re in Toronto you’re generally safe from people approaching you randomly.
It doesn’t really happen very much.
LKM: But you do share
quite a bit about your life, right? Like the neighbourhood where you live, and
stuff like that. So I’m sure there are people who feel like a bit of a kinship.
AC: That reminds me! Somebody did leave me a comment a while
back saying that they saw me—I don’t know if it was regularly or if it was just
once—but that they saw me riding my bike along Harbord St. on my way to work,
and I was just like “Arrrrhhhh.” That would have been in the summer, and I would
have been all red and sweaty and on my way to work. But I thought that was
cute.
LKM: Can you talk a
little bit about the separation between who you are online and who you are in
real life? Do you see a big difference?
AC: I don’t see a big difference, because it’s all in there.
There are certain things that I won’t talk about—especially on Twitter where it’s
much more immediate, it’s much more… I mean for somebody who tweets as much as
I do, there’s a chance to let a lot more slide.
It’s not as edited I guess. I try not to swear. Because you never know
like which fairly religious person might be into tote bags. And if there’s no
need then I’m not going to. So just little things like that. And I feel like
things like sarcasm do not travel well online, so I try to refrain from being
overly sarcastic or cynical or things that people might misinterpret and take
offense at.
LKM: But that’s
something that you don’t necessarily restrain from in person?
AC: No, in person I can be just as sarcastic and mean as
anybody else—with my friends anyway—but I try not to do that online. I just
don’t want to get into anything with anyone. It’s just not worth it.
LKM: What kind of advice
would you give to girls out there who are interested in starting a blog but
maybe don’t know how to start. How do you start it? Stick with it?
AC: I think definitely, and this might contradict what I
just said, I think it’s really important to be yourself. It sounds cheesy, but
people are really interested in other people. I think that the most popular
blogs out there are the ones where people constantly post pictures of their
lives, pictures of themselves, talk about themselves and what they’re doing.
People love that stuff, you know? They want to see who you are.
It’s crazy to me how I can just write these repository-type
posts I have and feel ridiculous when I write them sometimes because I’m giving
my opinion on this thing. Sometimes I think… who cares? But people do care!
They like to read that kind of thing. So I think it’s important to not fake
it. I guess I sensor myself in some
ways—more like edit myself. But it’s still me, it’s still true to who I am and
I stand behind it. And then in terms of sticking with it? I don’t know… I’d
like to figure that out too.
LKM: Five years is
pretty impressive!
AC: Yeah, I mean if only five people read it I probably would have abandoned it a long time ago.
AC: Yeah, I mean if only five people read it I probably would have abandoned it a long time ago.
LKM: Do you feel responsible
to your readers in some ways?
AC: Not really, and I don’t know if that comes out of a kind
of self-deprecating streak where I’m just like “Ugh, nobody’s going to care if
I don’t write a blog post for three weeks,” but I’ll get a comment occasionally
that’s like “I’m always excited when you post” or something. So that’s nice.
And then on the other hand there’s the business end of things. I need to keep
my profile up and not let my stuff be forgotten. But here’s my advice: If you
don’t love it then don’t do it. Don’t keep it up because then there’s no point.
But if you enjoy it then you’ll find a way to stick with it.
LKM: Where do you see
Fieldguided going in the future?
AC: As the blog?
LKM: Or as more than the
blog…
AC: That’s a good question, I wish I knew. I would love to
be able to do it full time, and I would love to expand the line, because it’s
so tiny at this point, which is just a matter of finances. But there’s so many
other things that I would love to do, but I just don’t know if that will
happen. We do have a couple of things in the works, a couple of collaborations,
but there are lots of other things that I’d like to get into.
I would love to be
able to do that full time, and to become a full-time business person and just
have the blog on the side. That’s the dream, but I don’t know if it’ll ever
happen. But if, in a year, we’re still going at the same pace, that’s fine too.
I feel like I have enough going on. I’m constantly busy and I kind of like it.
But it can be overwhelming. I don’t know, is that depressing? The same place in
a year? I’m pretty happy with how things have been going.
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