Friday, July 15, 2011

OMG! (and, Why You Should De-Lurk)

Interrupting my series on vision to say: OMG I WON A BLOG GIVEAWAY CONTEST!

Ok maybe you think it's not a big deal. But it's NATALIE WHIPPLE'S contest! :D And this is the first time I've ever won a blog contest in my life, so I'm super excited because I never thought I would win one. YAY!

I could not believe my eyes when I saw my name in that post. I stared at it for a long time to make sure it said what I thought it said. And then I scrolled through all 300+ comments on the contest post to make sure there wasn't any one else with the same name. And then I stared at the post some more, while thinking lots of calm and sensible thoughts such as "OMG OMG OMG" and "is this really happening? to me??" and "OMG I get to email Natalie!"

Seriously, the part I was most excited about was emailing Natalie. I know I probably could have emailed her at any time in the past two years I've been reading her blog to let her know how much she inspires me, but I've only started commenting on blogs recently... and I'm still a bit nervous when it comes to talking to someone as popular and amazing as she is. It just feels so different being invited to email her with a legit reason, you know?

So I wrote her an email. And honestly the first half of it was pure fangirling about how much I admire her. (I wonder if she gets that a lot?) 

And you know what awesome thing happened after that? SHE WROTE BACK. *squeee* :D

Ok, I know I'm starting to sound crazy because, duh, of course she'd write back. But still! I hadn't thought that far. It definitely put a huge grin on my face. And of course I wrote her back and gushed about her some more.

Which brings me to the part about de-lurking. You should seriously consider it, if you are currently a lurker. (No, I'm not just saying that to get more comments on my blog. But I certainly wouldn't mind if you want to comment! Hehe.) 

First of all, if you never de-lurk, you will never know the joy of winning a blog contest with a comment. That should be obvious. The second thing is, if you lurk for a really long time and finally start talking to awesome bloggers you've been cyber-stalking for years, you will not be able to stop yourself from behaving like a fangirl/doing something dumb because you're nervous/generally making a fool out of yourself. Because all those comments you wanted to make but never did? Yeah, no way they're going to organize themselves all nice-and-quietly so you can express them in a sane and thoughtful manner. Not after all those years of repression. No, my friend, they will burst out of the breaking dam, pour out in a waterfall, and rush happily away — to freedom! — and it will look so fun your dignity will decide to tag along, too. Whereas, if you'd been commenting all along, you wouldn't have that problem, see?

So yeah. Important things to consider, there. Of course there are also other reasons for de-lurking, like building relationships with people, supporting your favorite bloggers, getting your name out there, etc., but this post is mainly a Public Service Announcement concerning the specific hazard of excessive gushing.

Now excuse me while I go refresh my email. :D

32 comments:

  1. I thought that linda might be you. Yay, congrats!

    And yeah, haha, I never lurk. I'm too chatty/opinionated, lol, can't keep my mouth shut even online. But yeah, Natalie is wonderful. So down to earth. I can only imagine that her inbox is about to get swamped, haha. That's what happens when you sell a book!!

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  2. so cool that you won :)
    I'm a part time lurker.. on some blogs I comment all the time and then others I lurk, sometimes I do feel a little intimidated :)

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  3. You are cracking me up! I am certainly not half as cool as you say, but I appreciate that you think so:) Thank you for de-lurking, and for emailing me. You can continue to do both, you know:P

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  4. LoL! What a great post :) Congrats on winning the contest! And definitely stop lurking! Speak up! :D

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  5. Thanks, Kristan! :)

    Yeah, I admire you so much for how involved you are in the writing community! I kept seeing you everywhere and yo just sounded soooo cool. Hehe. And I love how much we gush about Natalie to each other. :D

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  6. I know! I can't believe it either. :D

    Yeah, it's scary to comment! But even though I make so many stupid grammatical mistakes and say things that might not come across the way I intended, people are still so kind. Thanks for leaving a comment here! It means a lot to me. :)

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  7. OMG OMG NATALIE LEFT A COMMENT ON MY BLOG! Hehe you knew that would be my response, right? :D 

    Thank you for being so kind! I'm sooo glad you find my gushing amusing rather than uncomfortable and weird. But then you're probably used to it by now. :P

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  8. Haha thanks! Yeah, I should take my own advice more often, shouldn't I? :)

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  9. Me? Cool? LOL I need to tell my boyfriend that one...

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  10. Your post cracked me up, and then Natalie cracked me up in the comments!  Congratulations on the win, and congratulations on Natalie commenting on your blog :D

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  11. Deborah Bryan WritesJuly 16, 2011 at 1:15 PM

    Before reading this entry, I would've said the "building relationships with people" aspect was the best part of commenting. Now that I've read your penultimate paragraph? I might be seeing things a little differently. ;)

    Congrats!

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  12. Yay! Congratulations on winning Natalie's contest!! And I love how you are telling people to de-lurk. It's so fun making so many wonderful friends that way. :)

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  13. WHEEEEE LINDA! That's too awesome. And all your reasons to delurk are excellent and true (which is a killer combination ;)). So glad I met you. <3

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  14. Haha I think it's mostly just for awkward people like me! :P

    I agree that getting to know people is awesome. I'm learning to feel more comfortable participating in the blogosphere and on Twitter, and it's partly with thanks to you. :) Thank you so much for reaching out to me on Twitter when it was still strange and intimidating to me. You were so friendly and fun that I realized it's actually not that scary to talk to new people! :D

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  15. Yeah! I had no idea what I was missing out on that entire time! But better late than never. :)

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  16. Aww, thanks, Yahong! Hehe I'm so glad I "met" you too! :P Thank you so much for taking a chance on me with that first email, and for the many fun chats we have all over the place. You're awesome! <3

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  17. Congratulations.

    I remember de-lurking on a writing forum.  Once I did, I was able to benefit from advice thrice as much. 

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  18. Oh, neat! That's one benefit I hadn't thought of. Thanks for bringing it up! :)

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  19. hahahahah you're hilarious. i actually went to her blog to look for your winning comment, are you impressed? which book did you pick?

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  20. hehehe yes! it was quite a ways down, too. umm i hope you weren't expecting
    anything special. it was just a random drawing hahaha XD

    did you have to ask? JANETTE RALLISON of course. (i've already read white
    cat/red glove and if i stay.) remember how much i laughed while reading her
    other books? also, it's getting sent to mom&dad so you can read it first if
    you promise to finish it before grandpa leaves to come back to taiwan. make
    sure he brings it with him ok???

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  21. Awesome!  Congrats on winning.  Your very point is what has me leaving a comment, even though all I have to say is yay and congrats again.  :-)

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  22. Congrats!  I squeeed just as much as you when Natalie answered one of my questions in a whole blog post once :D

    I had to come over when I heard you were a Cali girl living in Taiwan.  AND born on the east coast (I was a born a NYer but I live in L.A. now)  And girl you better tell me you're modeling over there with your freaky Shaq height.  :)

    Really nice to meet you!

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  23. Haha hi Sophia! Thanks for stopping by! Nice to meet you, fellow
    Asian-American-born-on-the-East-Coast-transplanted-to-Southern-California.
    :)

    Hehe Natalie is so awesome, right? :D

    LOL everyone tells me I should model or play basketball or volleyball.
    Unfortunately, I've discovered it takes a LOT more than just being tall to
    be able to do those things well, haha.

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  24. Saw you on Sophia's blog & then I had to stop by when I read that you're a 20-something Cali girl living in Taiwan! You see, I'm a 20-something Cali girl of Taiwanese descent AND I went to Cal (but totally was not as smart as you - MCB? Wasn't that competitive?!)!  Also, I have a little sister and was pretty good at those 1-night papers myself. I'm not, however, 5'9, and frankly, I'm kinda jealous of your height. Haha.

    (I realize now that I sound like Sophia's comment... Also, I totally don't mean to sound like a stalker, but the commonalities here are freaky.)

    That aside, CONGRATS on winning that big contest! I used to be a lurker too, but I delurked once I realized how cool and fun the online writing community can be. (Plus, all the contests.) If I hadn't delurked, I never would've met some of the wonderful, awesome people I've come to know over the past year or so. That said, it's nice to meet you. :)

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  25. I think it's AWESOME that we have so much in common! :D Hehe MCB wasn't that
    bad. I heard all sorts of crazy rumors about backstabbing, overachieving
    premeds, but didn't encounter any myself. Plus I was in one of the smaller
    concentrations (the best one, in my opinion :P). What was your major?

    I'm starting to see that there are soo many amazing people I'd never have
    met if I kept lurking. Thank you so much for leaving a comment! I'm really
    glad to meet you too!

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  26. Yeah, I heard it was the premeds too, but I wasn't sure if they were mostly Bio or MCB. Cool you didn't have to deal with that. I was a Psych major, so I took Presti's Drugs/Brain classes with some MCB peeps. Our department was big, but generally quite chill. I minored in Asian Am, but I just took all the Asian Am lit classes to satisfy my missing English lit classes. :)

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  27. Congratulations, Linda!

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