Behind The Scenes Of Big Blogger

I've been asked a few questions relating to this 'Big Blogger' series I've created, by various people through various different avenues. The most recent was the always lovely and charming MelbourneGirl (who I admire and respect a great deal, it must be said). It got me thinking; perhaps I need to address certain issues relating to Big Blogger publicly, before I inadvertently upset someone.

I by no means wish to embarrass MelbourneGirl with this post (so I hope that's not the result), but when she wrote the following comment on my 'Week 2' post on Monday, it seemed to me that it was the perfect opportunity to take the cue she offered and cover off on a few things for everyone's benefit.

So here's her comment:

poor clokes. i've been counselling him over the weekend about his departure, that's why i haven't commented yet.

not really. just been busy.

anyway, another good episode bevis. these must take you hours? i want to comment about m_m and me. but i don't want you to get cross with me about commenting on the action in the house.

suffice to say, i think we all know there are things about our characters in the bb house that aren't true to our blogging personalities. once i'm out, or the show is over, i think i might do a post highlighting all the instances which have been inauthentic for mg, because she is me. but it's all good fun, and we did agree to "hand over" our characters for the duration.

i'm glad i'm still in.

ps bevis. don't publish this if it says too much and you don't want to. email me and i'll edit.

x

And now to my reply:

MelbourneGirl, I'm glad to hear you've been counselling him! He probably needed it (especially after that kiss from Joffa). As for these episodes taking me hours, I can neither confirm nor deny how long each one takes me (although I've probably left enough clues to this around the place for you to work it out). Let me put it this way: When I start writing each episode, Wifey is a lot smaller (around the stomach area) than when I finish. Nah, that's just ambiguous and confusing. Each one takes around four hours to write. This is due to planning of this week and next week's 'dramas', 'love interests', 'comedy' and 'surprises'. I think I've told everyone here before that I start by drawing this week's evictee out of a hat, and then I 'plot' the next two episodes (this one entirely, and next week's as a rough draft) to enable people to switch roles from nasty to nice (case in point, MG and M_M!) for different weeks, and to partner people up who I know will at least be there the following week. Then of course I have to actually type it all out in script format, giving 'Feral' a (hopefully) realistic-sounding 'voice' and some level of realism to her hosting gig, and then finding enough stupid things to have the audience doing. I'm fast running out of those, by the way, so I imagine I'm going to have to start repeating myself on their reactions (or dropping them entirely and just have them 'applauding' and 'cheering' - it'd certainly be easier!). Then it's a spell-check, proofread and away it goes. I'm not saying I do all four hours at once; but I usually leave it until the last minute and end up posting it very late at night! (If you hadn't noticed.)

Anyway, you also said you wanted to discuss the arguing between your character and Magical_M's character. I hope this hasn't made you feel weird or anything; as I said over on M_M's blog during the week, I'm rotating the 'nasty' character (or I should say 'antagonist') throughout the group from week to week. This is because I can't really have a very interesting House without someone causing 'issues', and I certainly don't want to make someone the bad guy for the entire series. So my very intentional plan is to pick a different person for each episode who'll be cranky or will misunderstand something another character says to them or'll be really tired and upset with everyone and enable me to further the plot. I completely understand that this is not going to be how any of the characters' real-life personas would react, but I'm basking in the glow of fiction with this thing, so I don't think anyone assumes it's real. In fact, the only person I know in real life who's in the House is Javatari, and he couldn't be further from the way I'm portraying him! (I'm actually really enjoying the way I'm writing him, because it's so ludicrous it's hilarious - and I think he sees it that way too). In short, any arguing your character does is done so that someone that week can be in a bad mood - and it won't last.

You're certainly welcome to write a post after Big Blogger is done, outlining the instances where my representation of your character has been way off base. I imagine there'll be quite a few such instances! I'm certainly not trying to 'nail' how I actually perceive you to be when I write this thing. :) In fact, oftentimes I'm intentionally going in the opposite direction for laughs (and hopefully to emit a private smile on the face of the blogger being depicted, if it's something completely unrelated to them). But obviously this only happens when I know enough about the person in question (hence the questionnaire you've all filled in). One such example that springs to mind is when I had John Surname gushing about Rove and how much he loved him and wanted to meet him and tried to get a job on his show, etc. I did this to 'stir' John Surname himself, because that week he'd posted a big anti-Rove thing on his blog. (You see, sometimes I'm deliberately poking fun based on what you've blogged about, but most of the time I'm just making stuff up to assist with the storytelling I'm doing over here.)

I hope you don't think I'm lecturing you or in any way unhappy with anything you've said (thanks for asking me to contact you if I wanted you to edit your comment, but it was perfectly fine as you can tell). I just thought this was as good an opportunity as any to talk about these things to everyone - perhaps to stave off any future misunderstanding as much as anything else.

I certainly don't want to be offending anyone with these Big Blogger posts! This offer goes out to anyone featured in this whole Big Blogger exercise: If anything I ever say about your character (and I've been calling them "your characters" because they were never meant to actually represent you in any accurate form), then please send me an email and ask me to change it. Hopefully it won't involved too much hassle at my end with any necessary plot alterations (!), but even if it does, I'd much prefer to have you feel happy / not embarrassed or uncomfortable, etc. I can live with making changes to the post (and would definitely prefer to do that if you're unhappy with anything that's been said). So I mean it: Please let me know (privately) if I've offended anyone in any way and I'll rush to change it.

That being said, of course, I hope that everyone understands how much these posts are complete satire and not-at-all meant to say anything about any of you or how I perceive everyone in real life. Hopefully if there was anything you didn't want me to say about your character or have them do, you made that clear in the questionnaire you filled out. (That was the reason for the 'shower' question, for example.) Anyway, I pride myself on my integrity, so I will move heaven and earth to make you happy if that's what it takes.

I appreciate everyone's input in Big Blogger. Your comments and feedback (positive or otherwise) is what keeps me going, and if you feel I'm going off the rails, I want to hear that too. I don't want the 'series' to get 'ugly' any more than anyone in the 'House' wants to be slandered with false allegations that don't represent the real you. If I was trying to do this in a serious forum, that'd be one thing - but because I trust anyone who stumbles across this can see it's a complete piss-take, I hope everyone in the House is okay with what I write.

I will always endeavour to respect your reputations. It may not be obvious at first, but if I'm referencing a character in the House in any way, I do my 'research' and try to make it as much of an 'experience' as possible (even down to the overseas holiday in the three boxes for each winner of Big Blogger's Friday Night Live ... have you noticed?).

Yes, it's true: I put "far too much" time and effort into these Big Blogger posts, but I'm really enjoying writing them and it's not hurting anybody (at least I hope not!). In fact, I'm getting a chance to flex my writing muscle, and (again, I hope) you're all getting a thrill out of reading them (whether you're featured in the House or not). Additionally, I think the Big Brother franchise could do with a little ridicule right about now. And while I'm out of a job, I might as well keep busy. As Riss said yesterday, maybe it'll lead to someone actually paying me to do this kind of thing??! :)

(Maybe not, but it'd be fantastic if it did!)

Well, I hope that helps clear up a few things about Big Blogger. I'll be back tomorrow (Thursday) with the next episode. My apologies that I couldn't finish it today, but there was just too much going on this week (not to mention that Blogger has been playing up for the past few days).


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