It was a year ago today I started this blog. But having celebrated the blogs that came since in My 100th Post today I'm just looking back at why I started and why-oh-why I called it Broken Biro.I struggle with names for things. It's not that I don't have enough ideas - too many more like! - but I was painfully aware that it would probably develop in ways I didn't expect, so it couldn't be anything too specific.
Originally I thought it would be more about the nuts and bolts of writing, maybe even developing into some sort of writers' resource site, but once I began - and especially when I began to read more blogs and engage with other people online - I realised I wanted to be broader in content.
It took a while to realise a blog's a great place to store things that I'm interested in, even if no-one else read it! It's a very neat way of grouping thoughts, pictures, quotes and links on a particular subject together. I bet I use the Google 'search this site' tool in the top right more than anyone! I wish everyone had it - it's an easy way to find posts you vaguely recall someone writing ages ago!
But because I like writing and scribbling down ideas, I wanted a loosely writing-themed title. Something friendy, slightly comical and human too. I had a list, but I just kept coming back to Broken Biro - you could find one anywhere, use it to write anything. In a way the blog has become like those little notebooks I always carry around - crammed with thoughts, contacts, rhymes, facts, ideas written in with assorted biros.
I'm rambling, aren't I?
Anyhoo, that's where the name came from and I think it fits (although I am described in certain quarters as: 'Not a biro, not broken'. Bloody pedants!) - even despite my recent reinvention as a library assistant. It's not the best ever title - there are many out there I love and envy - but it's me!
10 Things you can do with a broken biro
Not write a novel- Not be able to write in the notebook you keep with you at all times
- Not mind-map ideas for stories and ideas in idle moments
- Make a big inky mess
- Shoot peas
- Drink 'Margaritas'
- Irreversibly stain trousers
- Emergency tracheotomies
- Press a restart button
- Fiddle
So - lots of things you can do with a broken biro... and that's before we even start on the whole lampshade / cutlery/ insert your own whacky idea here
Not send Christmas cards, with a clear conscience?
ReplyDeleteChew nervously?
ReplyDelete'Bloody pedant' I would change the name of my blog to that immediately, if only I used rude words.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! A year and now over a hundred posts, imagine! (It's taken us more than a year, until today, to reach 100 posts, and it took 4 of us to do it, so I am 4x impressed.)
ReplyDeleteAs for your title: I loved it from the start . . . well, almost, as I first had to seek from my British mate not only what a biro was, but how to pronounce it! Titles can be pesky (take it from . . . er . . . RA), and you have come up with a winner.
I look forward to what's on offer at Broken Biro in year 2.
Martin - good one! I'm not a major card-sender.
ReplyDeleteEllie - good one - and possibly 'have someone's eye out?
Dave - Well, you had your chance and chose another name entirely. Is 'bloody' rude? No intention to cause offense... well, not on this occasion anyway!
Rainy - Thank you kindly, although I'm shocked that you didn't know what biro was - I thought that was universal? Named for Laszlo Biro, the inventor of the ballpoint pen. But now I look at Wikipedia I learn it is a 'British English' thing. Doh - there goes my international breakthrough!
Is swearing rude? I take it that was a rhetorical question. 'Pedants' Revolt' is a title I may go with one day. After 'Gold Moidores' wears off.
ReplyDeleteThere once was a bloggery tyro
ReplyDeleteWho cried: "Modernise! On the pyre go
My pad and my pencil,
My ruler and stencil!"
So saying, she busted her biro.
Dave - it depends how you define 'swearing' and 'rude'... and I still don't get where the Gold Moidores came from
ReplyDeletePhilip - Ooooh! A limerick all about ME!... let's see...
But she secretly saved in her knicks
A cache of emergency Bics
For thoughts that salute her
When not at computer
(plus a notepad, and some pick 'n' mix)
(Struggling a bit for a last line there)