Why the Dirtbag Writer?

Why the Dirtbag Writer?

Posted on 05. Apr, 2010 by Writer in On Writing

I just finished reading 4 Classic Mistakes I Made In My First Year of Blogging which led me to reflect on all the things I think I’ve done wrong with this blog.  And then I read Abbie Mood’s This Niche Business is Stressing Me Out and then I really started spiraling.

For a while I’ve been worried that my blog name is lame, but when I came up with the name I had no idea people would actually be reading this.

As the story goes, I was bored at work one day and was futzing around with things and decided to spend the $10 and buy a domain name so I could futz more freely.  At the time of blog naming, I had fantasized about this whole dirtbagging thing – I guess I was mustering up ideas for future world domination.

I wanted to be a writer and I also knew that the only way I was going to be able to leave my job and follow all my dreams was by being a total dirbag, which had pretty much been my total travel style all along.  Some people would describe dirtbagging as minimalistic or budget travel but I like to think of dirtbagging as more of a lifestyle.  So to me a dirtbag is an extreme budget traveler that is ambitious, eco-conscience, and cooperative – a major dreamer, adventurer, and conventional dissenter.  So I paired dirtbag with what I wanted to be and there you have it – dirtbag writer.

Still I wonder if dirtbag writer is super cheeseball and I wonder what I would name my blog if I were naming it now.

I wouldn’t use my name because for one: people can never spell it right so they would never be able to find it again and for two: I am too shy.  I’ve written some really personal stuff and some total babble and really haven’t been too stoked about people I know actually reading this stuff.  But then I started reading Julie Schwietert’s blog and started considering the importance of owning what I wrote and now I am wondering if I am hiding too much behind this dirtbag facade.

So I’m curious.  How did you name your blog?  Do you wish you had named it something different?  Are you totally sick of the name or are you just starting to grow into it?

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8 Responses to “Why the Dirtbag Writer?”

  1. JoAnna

    05. Apr, 2010

    I named my blog spontaneously, and I like the name. It’s not about me; it’s about the way I feel about travel.

    I think it’s important to remember, though, that your blog is about you. What you put on it is your business. So what if you don’t have a niche? It’s not about how others define you; it’s about what you’re happy with. If you like the name, I say stick with it.

  2. Abbie

    05. Apr, 2010

    I like your blog name, I think it totally fits your lifestyle. I think you and I need to have a discussion at J-Tree about all this :) I can’t wait!

  3. Alouise

    05. Apr, 2010

    I say if you like your name you should keep it. Your philosophies and reasoning behind the name don’t seem that cheesy. Maybe not having a niche is ok, maybe it’s ok to diversify as long as your being true to your writing. I don’t really know.

    My blog name I got from a line in a Metric Song. Honestly I wasn’t even thinking of titles I just was listening to the song and though “oh that’s good.” Truthfully I’ll probably change the name at some point, but I’m going to wait until I decide to get my own domain before I do that. I don’t want to be the type of person that changes my blog name every 6 months of something.

  4. Nick

    06. Apr, 2010

    I *love* the name of your blog – not cheesy in the slightest.

    Mine came by accident. Someone once asked me to sum up Cairo, and I said delicious chaos. Found myself using it more and more, so it became the natural choice for the blog name.

    Plus it also sort of describes my life, too, so when I eventually move on from here I hope it will still be appropriate ; )

  5. Bryon Powell

    06. Apr, 2010

    I LOVE your blog name. It’s the best!

    As for the name of iRunFar.com, it was a long process. Back in the dark ages in mid-2004, you needed an invite to get a Gmail account. One of my former roommates was a well-connected web developer who quickly obtained a gmail account and offered me an account. The shortest addresses one could claim were six characters, so I aimed for that. I came up with “runfar”.

    In July 2006, I registered a URL for an ultrarunning website. Runfar.com was taken, so I tried to come up with another short, memorable name. I came up with iRunFar. That website went nowhere … for awhile. However, I started a blogspot iRunFar blog in December 2006. That blog later was moved to the long ago registered iRunFar as blog.irunfar.com. Finally, after three and a half years, I moved my work to the long ago reserved http://www.irunfar.com in January. To paraphrase Abbey, the trail has been “crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, [but] leading to the most amazing view.”

    My content has moved beyond the “far” aspect as I now write about shorter trail runs in additional to ultramarathons. I’ve thought of changing the name, of rebranding, but iRunFar is who I am. It’s here to stay!

  6. Johnny Vagabond

    07. Apr, 2010

    To me, choosing a name for anything is a real ‘gut’ decision — it either feels right or it doesn’t. We don’t name our children based on focus groups and polls, so why worry about the name of a site? Personally, I think dirtbagwriter is *hawt*

    As for mine, the name comes from an old torch song sung by Bonnie Guitar in the early 60s — she was very much a Patsy Cline-esque singer. In the song, she’s pining for her wandering lover, her Johnny Vagabond, and I just loved the cheesy melancholy of it. One of the driving ideas behind my trip and my site was to convince people that *anyone* can travel, and to me Johnny is a solid ‘everyman’ kind of name…

    Great site! Looking forward to following along…

  7. Akila

    23. Apr, 2010

    I spent forever coming up with our blog name. We had an original name “Feet on the Globe” that neither of us really liked. We wanted to change the name but couldn’t figure out exactly what we were looking for. In the end, we realized that we needed a niche. When we picked food and travel as the obvious choice, the name just fell into place.

  8. Ekua

    05. May, 2010

    I think “Dirtbag Writer” is attention grabbing. It makes people want to look more into who you are. In fact, I found your site through a post on Lonely Girl Travels mentioning people with cool blog names. I like my blog name although most days, I feel more like a woman than a girl ;)

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