Tessa Zeng: Blogger, Revolutionary, Awesome Person

Meet Tessa Zeng. Master Creator of Experiencing Revolution.

She is the embodiment of someone who has kicked the status quo to the curb and is carving out her own place in this world. A former art student turned rogue blogger turned future ebook extraordinaire-she is an inspiration and a catalyst for change and outside of the box thinking.

Lately, one of the things I am loving is making new friends that I have never met. Friends that have similar interests and ideas and are united under a desire to pursue our passions with gusto. Tessa is one of those people so I asked if I could interview her. I had read her blog and decided I wanted to get to know her a little better.  She graciously agreed and here are her thoughts. Enjoy!

1. What is your favorite food? Color? Thing to get in the mail?

Hardest questions first?! OK: Freeze-dried strawberries, a constant battle between emerald green/magenta/fuschia/absolute ultramarine… and the coolest thing to get in the mail are real words. Hand-written letters, books, etc. My friend AnnaMarie has sent some remarkable postcards from Paris that might rival that statement, though, now that I think of it.

2. What are 3 words that define you?

Why is cat?

3. What got you started blogging?

Chris Guillebeau’s 279Days to Overnight Success . I had this resistance to the idea, having dabbled in online journaling growing up and witnessed the growth spurt of fashion blogs. But Chris said something to the effect of- if you have ideas, a blog is the best way to get them out there. And I was like…ok, wow, why not?

My first blog was what I call a not-fashion blog. I had absolutely no idea what I was in for, and trial-and-errored for four months, learning the ins and outs of WordPress, social media, etc, which was the best training ground ever.

4. What are two places you get your inspiration from?

1) When things hit a nerve. I spend so much time just soaking things in and processing them. Then the inevitable explosion happens in my head- blog posts really are like land mines.

2) What other people aren’t saying. It’s like the truths are all buried underground, and sooner or later you realize no one else is digging them up quite the way you want them to, and you pick up the shovel with your own hands. Hm, I’m sensing a ‘buried’ metaphor here.

5. Where do you want to take your blog?

This is an interesting question. I could say- to a wider engagience, a more effectively-positioned platform, perhaps most accurately to the point where I can experiment with a variety of projects. But mostly, I want to take my blog into the real world. I call it the Laptop2Life conversion rate . I believe online data is only as powerful as how much we can figure out how to leverage it offline.

6. What are the top 5 blogs you read?

Here’s where I make people mad, haha. I’ve never done RSS, Google Reader… in the beginning I read like mad, because it was like discovering a new world. But I’ve found that once you immerse yourself, curate your Twitter feed to a certain extent, and most importantly- keep writing and unraveling your own thoughts, other people’s posts will just crop up when relevant.

That said- I probably singlehandedly spiked pageviews at Chris’s AoNC, Danielle’s WhiteHotTruth, and Ash’s TheMiddleFingerProject. Too many current inspiration hubs to list, but I’m especially soaking up the philosophical headiness of MingZhu’s The Public Studio and John Hagel’s Edge Perspectives.

7. Why the interest in changing the way we create?

Heh, my old ebook title was going to be Changing the World = Changing the Way We Create. And though I’ve since jumped ship for a sexier catchphrase (you’ll have to wait and see!), I really believe that. Coming from art school, where everything was about making…  juxtaposed with all the changemakers and passionate philosophy I’ve encountered since online, I’ve stumbled across an intersection that few seem to be exploring- that our creativity has the potential to open up the greatest channels of communication possible.

Creation is how we’ve gotten here, how we’ve built up the world around us with bare hands. And if we can do it more deliberately than ever before, and find new ways to make everything- from blog posts (http://experiencingrevolution.com/hey-there-im-an-awesome-blog-post-you-should-obviously-come-read-me/) to clothing (http://rethinkingstyle.com/style-yourself-free)- we’ll be able to design the experience of a more enlightened world.

8. If you could give a new blogger one piece of advice, what would it be?

Forget how blogging is ‘supposed’ to be done. Learn from the best and do your research, but don’t let it define you. It’s just as in anything- no one really knows what they’re doing, the experts finangled their way there, and Thesis theme just happens to work for a giant sea of status-quo-busting blogs that now, ironically, all look the same. Dare to experiment.

9. What is one way you feel Experiencing Revolution changing the world?

To be honest, I don’t know. I think it’s too early to tell. But this also touches on something I’m arguing in my ebook- that specific changes are rarely the point. What really matters is the larger shift, which I get a sense of when someone comes out of the woodwork to comment with a passionate anecdote, or when new changemakers somehow find and resonate with my online work (like when you emailed me, Amanda!) – that’s the real change I feel. It feels more tangible than statistics. And more than anything, I feel a new experience shaping!

10. What is one thing you hope to accomplish with the release of your new e-book?

Start to shift a major paradigm about the way we make things. If I can make a visible dent in the ancient rock of creative thinking, I’ll be thrilled! Not to mention clarify my vision that much more for anyone who finds me and my work- and isn’t that communication clarity what we all long for?

Her e-book comes out on April 30th! If you’re creatively ambitious and curious, check out Tessa’s site for more details… or go straight to the cat 😉