Even on my worst day, however, I hope I was better than the hacks they brought out on Tuesday in the first day post-Maura. Eventually, the internet community dredged up where “Robbie” and “Becky” came from (gay culture site Towleroad and a gossip blog hosted by the cable channel E!, respectively), but that’s not the issue: what was once a clever site that brought out the best from those posting and commented covering whatever was happening in music became a Lady Gaga fansite overnight. I really wish that were an exaggeration, but long thoughtful, provocative posts were gone, and quick, poorly edited posts with an occasional PMS joke thrown in as a replacement.

(via The End of Idolator by Dan Gibson)

An “oh snap!” moment from Dan Gibson, former contributor to Idolator — a music news/commentary blog that I read daily. (Side note: I applied for the writing position that Gibson eventually took; he did much better at it than I would have. He has also contributed to Buzzgrinder a time or two, so that’s how you know he’s legit.)

Idolator’s editor and last original staffer Maura left rather suddenly last week, and the two people who replaced her have, indeed, let the site go into shambles more quickly than I thought possible. When I checked the site this morning, the top headlines were Katy Perry, two Lady Gaga articles in a row and an Alicia Keys video.

What happened to articles exploring the ’90s revival, alternative rock, the quality of modern music journalism and a healthy balance of mainstream and underground music? All out the window.

This is a very obvious argument for being attentive to branding. Idolator regulars knew Maura and Dan and what to expect from them, and that was what Idolator was. If those people leave and their replacements don’t look and feel at least a little bit like them, good luck keeping your readership. Unless, of course, your goal all along was to gain momentum, then spam Google with headlines about pop stars for boosts in page views (and losses in reader loyalty). Thanks, Buzznet.

Attention writers and those who fancy themselves to be writers! In case you hadn’t heard, the English language is full of ridiculous rules and exceptions to those rules. But some things just make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.

One of those things is the proper (or improper) use of the apostrophe. It’s pretty simple to get down, and apostrophe.me is here to help. They pretty much cover everything so I won’t repeat it here.

Also, if you want to be a writer, I’m only two weeks late telling you that November is National Novel Writing Month. No, I’m not writing a novel. Yes, I do know a few people who are trying. Even if you start late, it’d be good practice. It’s not like you have to publish your work. The point is to do something.

Of course, I’m not one to talk. My writing has clearly dropped off lately due to busyness. I swear, I’ll catch up somehow.

And so I will finish here, on an entirely different topic than the one I started with. Happy Friday the 13th!

What do you do when you have rapper’s block? Er… I mean writer’s block.

Not write, that’s what.

Once again, I have a case of writer’s block. Last year when I decided to give up my songwriting and drawing goals after a couple months, it was because I wasn’t good at making myself create on cue. Clearly it’s no different for writing, though perhaps a bit easier for me to fake.

So there’s the question of the day: is it okay to fake art? To force it just to keep the creative momentum flowing? I don’t know the answer to that.

Seth Godin said this just today:

You could watch the most non-creative, linear-thinking, do-it-by-the-book cop work to solve a crime and you’d be amazed at how creative her solutions seem to be. Creative for you, because you’ve never been in that territory before, it’s all new, it’s all at the edges. Boring for her, because it’s the same thing she does every time. It’s not creative at all.

This makes me wonder if, in some sense, creativity is simply knowing your environment so well that you can flex and move within your personal limitations and that, for you, it doesn’t seem like creativity. It just looks like it to everyone else because you know your space better than they do.

So is creativity relative? Does it even exist? It seems like more of a product of practice than anything. Someone should write a book about that. Oh wait.

Because I’m a self-promoting narcissist, I figured I would make sure my top albums of 2008 list on Buzzgrinder gets as much attention as possible.

Maybe I’m having trouble seeing it from someone else’s perspective, but there are absolutely no surprises on that list. Either way, I highly recommend you check out every album on there, as well as anything on my fellow Buzzgrinder writers’ lists that are being posted all this week. I’ve already made a few new discoveries this week thanks to them.

I was just reading largehearted boy’s sixth birthday post and realized that I, too, started blogging (here, anyway) in January as well. So I decided to check, and discovered that this blog just hit the three-year mark two weeks ago.

My first blog post was on January 17, 2005. I’d like to think I’ve gotten better since then. I’m posting more regularly these days if nothing else. Browse the archives in the right column and decide for yourself.