You need to blog like Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, much like Hildegard whom we talked about earlier in this series, was a woman of immense talent during a time when such things were rather hard for guys to wrap their heads around. She was born a poor peasant girl, uneducated, headed for a rather non-extraordinary life. If you know your history, that is exactly the opposite of how she turned out. She turned out to be a brilliant strategist, a religious hero, a great debater, and a staunch defender of her king and country.
There are a few things you could pull from Joan’s story as you sit down to blog. Consider:
Don’t be persuaded that you’re wrong: At 17, Joan of Arc started trying to visit the dauphin of France. She wanted to tell him that she had had a vision that she was to help him become king of war-torn France. Upon her first attempt to visit the royal court, Joan was laughed out of the room. How would you react if a teenage girl from a poor family came up to you and said that voices had told her to do stuff? However, Joan was not discouraged by this reception. She relentlessly came back, wanting to let her dauphin know what her visions had revealed.
As a blogger, it’s extremely easy to be “laughed out of the room.” Especially if you are new, it can be hard to stand by what you say and think. Don’t let people push you to give up, no matter how influential they are in the online world. Hold true to what you believe and to what you are saying.
Create a new prototype: The Medieval world really didn’t know what to do with Joan of Arc. She was a woman and never pretended to be otherwise, but she dressed in men’s clothing and cut her hair short. This went against everything women were “supposed” to do. Certainly women couldn’t be great soldiers and retain the qualities of a pure woman at the same time. And yet somehow Joan managed to combine all of these traits. Not only that, but she became a great hero. There had been no one like her in any kind of memorable history, yet she did not let standards and guidelines suppress her.
As a blogger, it can be easy to look for a pigeonhole to stuff yourself into. You can try to blog like xyz blogger. You can talk about the same stuff as this group of bloggers. You can try to adapt a voice that’s like some other blogger you know. But there is nothing wrong with chucking all of the stuff that’s been done. Start with something new and uniquely you. Why not? You have a lot less to lose in doing so than Joan of Arc did in the 15th century, right?
Choose your allies wisely: In an extremely short period of time, Joan of Arc succeeded in liberating Orleans. Her dauphin, Charles, was crowned king (Charles VII). Despite all she had done for Charles, however, he quickly abandoned her once he ascended to the throne. He found her, perhaps, to be too militant while he wanted to make peace. Whatever his reasoning, Charles did not grant Joan more troops. She went off to attack Paris on her own, without his support. When she was captured, he did not try to rescue her.
Choosing allies as a blogger can be similarly risky. You may find that after helping someone find success, they quickly abandon you and pretend that their success is only due to their own efforts. While a “mission” and helping others is extremely important, self-preservation should also be in the mix somewhere. This is a lesson Joan had to unfortunately learn the hard way.
Don’t let other peoples’ smarts intimidate you: At the end of her life, Joan of Arc was put on trial before French clerics and scholars. They wanted to try to prove that she was not worthy of her heroic reputation. It would have been easier on them all if it had been proven that she was just crazy or otherwise unreliable as a heroine. Facing a panel of scholars might have convinced Joan from the start that she had met her match, but records show that she held her own, out-debating these men who had had so much more formal training than she. According to all accounts, she did not approach her trial as a meek underdog. She approached it as an equal.
As a blogger, there will be times that you will disagree with a person who perhaps seems smarter than you, who has more experience than you, who might have a bigger following than you. It can be easy, in these situations, to simply give in and abandon what you believe. After all, they know best. Don’t let other peoples’ smarts or experience intimidate you. Don’t let other people inspire you to believe that you are surely the one in the wrong.
Joan of Arc comes down to us as a one-of-a-kind woman who turned the tide of the 100 years war and reinvented how women could work in society. As a blogger, everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, has the opportunity to change blogging forever. You can make any kind of impact you want. You can leave a footprint as big as the one Joan of Arc left on France, if you want. Stand your ground. Believe in yourself and what you are doing. And don’t let anyone think they can defeat you.
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anthea/281700306/ via Creative Commons
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I love me a little history in my blogs. But isn’t she the chick they burned at the stake? So we can blog like her and not end up like her. Maybe that’s the secret. : )
I so love the premise of this post, Margie. We must stick to out convictions! Even when readers unsubscribe, which is what dannybrown was talking about over at For Bloggers By Bloggers today. I have gotten bolder with this over the years. I have things I want to say, things I NEED to say and I don’t always expect people to agree with me. Actually, that is quite liberating when I think about it. but however long I continue to blog, I just hope I can stay true to all my readers, listen to them when they comment and give them each a voice. Sadly, some bloggers become “successful,” as you say and they forget the “little people.”
Execellent, thought-provoking stuff here.
@JudyDunn Hey, hey, hey; it’s getting a little hot in here………:)
@bdorman264 Haha. A little hot? I like that. I think that Margie’s post is all about being yourself, which I see you as doing every day. If it gets a little hot, then, let’s bring it on!
@JudyDunn I tried to think of a way to spin the burning in a positive way – everything I thought of seemed to be a pretty giant stretch though….:)
Thanks Judy. I appreciate the kind words!
I started blogging naked to be different. That didn’t work out so well; I found if I sat in the same place too long I would stick to the chair. Yeah, it’s as bad as the mental image you just had……..:).
I have certainly encountered some ‘manipulators’ in here who quickly abandoned me when they realized I couldn’t further their cause, but maybe that was just a good business decision on their part. I’m sure we’d still be friends if I saw them on the street, so I’m not the one to judge. Oh well, social is fickle enough to waste spending any time worrying about most of this stuff. I’ll just try to be ‘me’ as much as I can; fully clothed or not……..just sayin’…..
@bdorman264 This is the second time naked blogging has appeared in a conversation I’ve been in in as many weeks. Should I be worried? Paranoid?
Few things enable us to be more ourselves than to be naked – I think having no real manipulative agenda on your blog site is a good place to start.
I love this post too, Margie. It reinforces my thought that we should take the “101 rules of blogging” (all the things the “experts” say) with a huge grain of salt.
Yes, there is merit to many of them, but if we all followed the “rules”, what a bland, cookie-cutter (blogging) world it would be!
@Chris Lovie-Tyler I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. There’s a lot of good advice out there that can help you out. But you don’t need to be pinned in by it, you know? You can follow good tips without sounding exactly like somebody else. Just like you can have good grammar but not write like Faulkner…maybe not the best analogy but you catch my drift 🙂
@margieclayman No, you may be right. I guess it depends on what you want to achieve, and how far you’re willing to go to do something different.
I know of a blog where the author has completely blocked it from search engines, and removed any share buttons, and depends entirely on word-of-mouth to get readers.
I love that. Bucking the system.
Throughout history, dating back to Egyptian and Byzantine empires, there have been influential women. Their stories may not be as oft-told but they are nonetheless equally significant to remind us that it wasn’t just one woman who bucked the system but that historically there have been many.
Margie, once again, you raise the bar and offer not only historically relevant context but tie it nicely into how the modern social and tech landscape can benefit from it. We’re often quick to deify those who proclaim themselves leaders. However, true leaders are not those with a lot of followers. True leaders are those who with just a few can conquer the world!
@saving4someday Thanks Sara. Yes, there have been a lot of women who really should have their stories told more often – Aretemisia is one of my favorite underdogs – the Persian warrior princess. She had to have been a handful. But Joan seemed like a good person to write about because for all of her intelligence, she also made a lot of mistakes. One could argue she let her mission blind her at her own peril. She’s an interesting case.
By the way, thank you for perfectly wording what I’m trying to do with this series. I couldn’t have said it better myself 🙂
@margieclayman I almost mentioned Artemisia because she’s pretty bad[bleep]. I knew I liked your way of thinking!
And, yes, Joan was an excellent choice. Besides being much more well known, Joan’s experiences have so many parallels to life as an up and coming blogger.
Glad to contribute.
Write like your hair is on fire and you have to run naked through a crowd to put it out.
@TheJackB Now, <i>there’s</i> an idea! 🙂
@TheJackB Now, there’s an idea! 🙂
@Chris Lovie-Tyler Passion brings power to our words.
@TheJackB Yes it does.