My bloggy BFF Lorraine and I talk about a lot of things all the time. That was a really pointless intro. I had typed something more specific about the thing that this post is actually going to deal with, but it was a lie, you see, because I actually email her way more than is appropriate. (And the sad part is that this is even after my filter kicks in 5–6 times a day to say, “No, Nicole, you can’t email her to tell her that you want chocolate. Not because she won’t care, but because that’s just rude, you know? Getting other people thinking about chocolate in the middle of the work day? You just suffer in silence for now.”)

So the actual conversation topic in question is something she blogged about quite recently. (And I’m probably going to link that post again because it’s really about something else entirely and I want to talk about that too because I’m a brain thief.) She’s always been anxious about the idea of writing professionally because she’s afraid it will kill all the joy of writing, because, you know, having your creativity sucked dry for the evil boss man. Ew.

I just wrote my first sponsored post and writing it was a weird experience. I have had jobs that were writing intensive (or even exclusively writing). The part that would make a lot of people feel as though the life had been sucked out of writing would be the task of adopting another voice. I interned for civil rights lobbyists and in addition to hyper-specific formatting rules, the tone was a bit tricky for me to get used to. Writing for my school’s alumni magazine was a lot more natural.

I’m aware that my name still goes on all of those things, but when it’s published in a particular source, that changes things. For me, at least, that alters my relationship with what I’m writing.

Even when it was hard, it was never unpleasant. That was often one of my favorite parts. I liked having to ask myself how this other entity should be speaking about something and reconciling that with my own words and voice. That was the challenge. (Less fun is when I have to drop the Oxford comma. THAT IS SOUL-DEATH THAT ONE CANNOT RECOVER FROM.)

This was another thing entirely. Now, I’m me. I’m me talking about something that I probably wouldn’t talk about otherwise, but now have to figure out how I would. I have this whole obnoxious identity crisis thing going on right now, without this.

(It should be noted that realizing that I was using the final wages from my poorly paid job to drive 2,000 miles across the country was part of what made the lure of a few tanks of gas impossible to resist)

Half the time I spent writing this post was spent obsessing over my own authenticity: Was it salvageable? A lost cause in this assignment? A fictitious notion to begin with?

I’m feeling so unsettled about myself and my place in the world lately. I think that’s the main reason it’s so important for me to finish my thesis. One of my grad school besties sent me an email telling me it was all going to be OK because (among other reasons) I’m good at school, so it’s basically NBD. It’s not a problem, because I am good at school so I’ll get this done and it’ll be awesome.

Right. But. But I’m not doing it and I don’t really know how to do it and I’m freaking out because right now I’m very, very bad at school. It’s hard for me to talk about less because I’m ashamed to share it, and more because it’s a moot point. I don’t seem to know anyone who is enough of a dick to actually say, “Yeah, you’re right, you’re kind of failing at all the things,” and I’m at a loss when people (kindly) try to tell me that my current feelings are wrong. They’re my feelings and while the temporary glow of warm fuzzies are nice, they’re not going to change until I do.

So.

After all of my obsessing about how to write the post, I had to double back and obsess over what it means. I tried to tell myself it didn’t have to mean anything, but I can’t let it go. It felt a little fraudulent to just spring that. I know I had my little disclaimer, but it seems like that wasn’t enough. While I’m in a state of general panic about who I am and what I’m doing, it seems highly problematic to start sullying my good internet name.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing more travel-oriented posts that are slightly less devoted to my silly life stories and EPIC FEELS, but I’m just not sure how I feel about this as a means of making that happen.

Since the majority of my readers are fellow bloggers, I’m curious how others perceive sponsored content. I had been pretty solidly against it for a while. I only got on board because I’m working with some good people as the go-between on these conversations and that makes it a lot easier for me to reconcile. But clearly not actually easy. Let’s discuss. What is your stance on sponsored content?