GrrlScientist has written a science blog since 4 August 2004. She is an evolutionary biologist, ornithologist, aviculturist, and freelance science and nature writer. A native of the Pacific Northwest, she relocated from Seattle to New York City with her parrots after earning her PhD. In New York, she was a postdoctoral fellow for two years, reconstructing a molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the South Pacific islands.
photo by Bob O'H used under creative common license
Why do you blog? How did you get started?
Ever since I first learned how to read, I have written a journal. After I moved to New York, I began writing an electronic journal that I emailed to my friends in Seattle and to my friends from grad school as a way of staying in touch with them. My birding essays were emailed to one group of friends, my book reviews went to another group, and my “NYC Life” essays went to yet another group. However, I had no venue for sharing scientific papers that I’d read. I was encouraged by a friend to start a blog and collect all my writings in one place.
I view my blog as a collection of all my rough drafts on a variety of topics. Seeing the thousands of essays I’ve written is rewarding because it makes me feel that I do something of value.
What’s the payoff for the time it takes to blog successfully?
The payoff for me is the community of international readers that has developed around my blog. Most of these long-time readers have become friends over the years and have helped me in myriad ways for which I am and always will always be grateful. Further, writing a blog has given me the opportunity to be judged based on the quality of my words and ideas rather than my gender or social connections — this is the first time in human history that this has been the case and I think it is absolutely priceless.
How did you choose the name of your blog?
When I first started my blog, I was employed as a postdoctoral fellow, and I had intended that my blog would chronicle what it is like to be a scientist, thus, the name Living the Scientific Life. Instead, my funding ended and I couldn’t find a job, so my blog became my primary source of self-worth and social connections while I struggled to keep myself housed and fed. That’s when I added the parenthetical “Scientist, Interrupted” which I hope to drop one day.
What are your favorite posts from the blog?
Hummingbirds and Torpor
Schemochromes: The Physics of Structural Plumage Colors
Audubon’s Aviary: Portraits of Endangered Species
What other social networking tools do you use and why?
I use flickr to host my images. I typically upload between 300-400 MB of images for use on my blog each month. This is a huge space commitment for any server, so I rely on flickr as an image host server but not as a social networking site. I do rely on social networking tools and sites to let the public and the media know when I’ve written something that should receive wider distribution (a popular “translation” of a scientific paper, or a book review, for example).
Any words of wisdom for new nature bloggers?
First, write about what you know and enjoy. If you write about topics that other people want you to write about, your blog will quickly be transformed into another job — a rather boring and unrewarding job at that.
Second, you need to be consistent about writing your blog. If you make a commitment to publish something on your blog once per week, then choose a day when that will happen and stick with it regardless of what is happening in your life. If you publish something extra during the week, that’s so much the better. If you publish something that you don’t like, well, *it happens: that’s part of the writing game, too.
Third, always spell-check your entries and make sure the punctuation is correct. I know this sounds boring, but the extra time spent fixing these errors is time well-spent. People do judge you on your writing and communication abilities, and the readership for a blog is so fluid that one badly written essay could be enough to keep readers from returning.
Anything that you’d like to volunteer without being asked?
I will be hosting a session at the ScienceOnline ‘09 conference at Research Triangle in North Carolina (16-18 January 2009). I’d be very pleased to see people there, and also to read their suggestions and comments regarding what they want me to discuss at my session — this is, after all, intended to provide the audience with useful information, so it helps if I know what they want to learn more about! Read more about it here: Science Online ‘09 Presentation
Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) can be found on Science Blogs at http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/. You can contact GrrlScientist by email to GrrlScientist AT scienceblogs DOT com
My fellow NBN blogger, Mike, is also moderating a discussion on blog carnivals at the upcoming ScienceOnline’09 sciblogging conference. If you’re attending, tell them both hi!
