Strategies of a Prayer Waterboy…

…for those who don’t feel much like a warrior, is an experimental work-in-progress example of Persona Blogging, sponsored by Tony Chung Creative Communications.

What is Persona Blogging?

Personas are characters that authors like me make up to talk to when we feel lonely. These characters are as real to me as my friends and family. I based them on my friends and family. However, they are created for a reason: to provide concrete references that embody the goals, tastes, status, social network, and personality traits of a specific group of people. Rather than identifying people by generic traits, we become familiar with their names and faces, because they are very real people.

Visit the wikipedia article on personas as used in user-centered and interaction design and the website for the book The User is Always Right for more information about personas.

Why this age?

For this project I chose to write from the perspective of high school students about 14 to 16 years of age. Those were the most challenging years of my life: the search for my own identity, independence from my parents, preparing myself for academia or the working world—all the wonder and mostly fear of the unknown is encapsulated in this age group. Most of us felt as if we lived in a fish bowl, judged on the basis of our friends, our clothes, our behaviour and mannerisms, and our activities.

We were torn between wanting to be left alone and at the same time be known. We craved attention but hoped to gain it through isolation. Our insecurities were worn on our sleeves and hidden behind our brave fronts. We wanted to make our own mistakes and live our lives for ourselves, but we desperately needed someone to lead us through the obstacle course of life.

Why a blog?

I started this idea intending to publish a book, and I very well may do so, but nowadays, more people read organically online. By joining the social web, I open the subject up for others to interact with my characters, adding a sense of reality to my fantasy. My fantasy is already a dramatization of reality, and I hope you will find it to be an entertaining read as time goes on.

Disclaimer: The Great Hope

The characters in this blog are fictitious, but great attempt is made to represent the qualities of real people that you and I know. My hope is that you recognize someone you know when you read these posts. My reason for writing this is that you try to understand them as much as I am trying to. Teenagers need a listening ear more than a helping hand sometimes. If we can turn our adult generation into sounding boards with mutual respect for teenagers and each other, then this blog was every bit worth the price I paid.

How you can help

My content is freely available on the web, so if you lift it from my site there’s really nothing I can do about it. Based on the example set by others in the community, I am releasing myself of all copyright to the material I create. However, you must respect my moral rights, and not use my work in any way that misrepresents the intended meaning of my work.

I also ask that you provide credit and and refer people back to my site as the source, for no other reason than to identify yourself as a member of this community that I am hoping to engage.

As I tend to write while in coffee shops, you can buy me a latté to help me pass the time.