My mom gave me a hard time about my last post. She was totally confused. See, she gets my posts delivered to her email account which is nice if you just follow that straight to the site and read the post here on the site, but Blogger is blocked at her work and so she reads what I wrote from the email that was delivered.
That would be fine too, except that my last post went something like, "Hey, I'm blogging again! Goodbye." Reading it on her email, she thought she was missing something. She thought that maybe there was more on the actual website that she couldn't see from the email and, since her and my dad are my two most faithful readers, she called me up to figure out what exactly my post had been about. When I told her it was just an "I'm back!" announcment she responded, "So, you just jumped on to tell us your back to blogging, but then didn't actually blog about anything?"
"Um... yeah. Yeah, I guess that's about it."
Uh-oh. I see I have a little problem on my hands here. My readers actually want something WORTH READING. Darn.
It got me thinking. While I love writing things that people enjoy and love to read, it's not my primary goal in blogging.
I have two goals that bring me back to this platform:
1) To get me writing. Plain and simple. Writers need to write, and I have found that this blog keeps me going even if it is just "dust in the wind" and completely boring and unedited.
2) To help me express myself. I am not naturally good at this. It takes me YEARS to get people seeing me accurately, and I can also be pretty sloppy when it comes to getting out what I think or how I feel about things in conversation. I process ideas slowly and I need to mull things over quite a bit before I feel ready to form any kind of opinion. This blog give me a place to process at my speed, write things out (because that helps me immensely), and share it with an actual audience instead of keeping it to myself. And because I have taken the time to write things out here on the blog I find myself more confident and clear when talking with people later. I'm a work in progress, but I'm getting there :)
So, unfortunately, I don't write for my readers so much, although I love having people here reading. I write for myself. There. I said it. Take it or leave it!
Me too! That's why I write about cloth diapers and my extreme political views all on the same blog. If I was trying to sell ads, I'd limit it to something marketable. If I wanted to keep the family happy, I'd only post cute anecdotes about the girls with pictures. I write for me, but it is nice when someone else comments. ;)
ReplyDeleteAmen. Besides, if we can't use the internetz as a public forum for meditative, progressive self-is-h-ness ( because sometimes self-is-necessary) where else are we going to do it?
ReplyDeleteAh...just blog what you want. I'm sure it will be good.
ReplyDeleteHa, ha. My blogger friends agree :) There is a reason for these things, I swear! And it's a good one!
ReplyDeleteWow, how clearly you have expressed that you aren't good at expressing yourself! I've never experienced trouble understanding you, just so ya know :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Jon! But I'm not talking about not being understood. I'm referring to not opening my mouth in the first place :/ It's been a process for me to say what I'm really thinking and feeling.
ReplyDelete