I briefly toyed with the idea of doing NaBloMoFo or whatever it is, but then I went the other way by not blogging at all.
In truth, I’ve had too much going on to blog. Which sounds ridiculous, because isn’t that what I’m supposed to be blogging about?
I have this issue with truth. In college creative writing classes they taught us about “Creative Non-Fiction,” a term, I have heard, you’ll get laughed out of town for using in the publishing world, even though it’s taught like it’s a real thing in college. We were taught with triumphant school speak that your experiences are yours! Your reality is from your perspective! Own it! Write about it honestly! Don’t worry about truth in facts! Deal with truth of emotion. (I got tired of the exclamation points and felt that one more would just be obnoxious).
But here’s the thing, I don’t own my life, because my life isn’t just about me. If I tell you where I was the last week and what I was doing and who I was with and how I felt about it, it wouldn’t just be about me, and there’s a part of me that feels like that’s supremely unfair. The people in my life agree to be my friends, they don’t agree to be my subjects, and I’m not 100 percent sure about how to reconcile that in my head.
Do you wrestle with that? How do you find your balance between talking about your life and ratting out the people you love?
I’m still going to keep blogging. And I’m going to try to be as honest as I can, but this is something I’m struggling with right now. Funny. Green bloggers don’t have these problems. Kitty litter never hurt anyone’s feelings (as far as I know).
It’s a problem. A friend of mine recently told me that something I wrote about her hurt her feelings. The hitch? It wasn’t about her.
But that’s the same thing I’ve heard almost every author say about their friends and family. Everyone thinks its about them. I don’t know if there’s any way around that issue unless you always make everything positive.
That way you can guarantee you’ll be so boring, you’ll have no readers, and problem solved.
I haven’t had anything to do, thus nothing to blog about. Sucks.
I wrote a post about loneliness and feeling friendless and one of my “real life” friends totally took offense to it. Thing is, I don’t know if she’s a friend or not and felt that way before I wrote the post.
It can be a problem. I try to be sensitive, but I have experienced someone misunderstanding my intentions in blogland. But then I made her dinner and everything was fine.
I try to stick to the old adage, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, just make sure that person doesn’t read your blog.” It usually works.
Just write what you feel like writing, always.
It’s hard to get certain emotions across in writing. Mickey’s referring to one time when he was being sarcastic and I thought he was being serious, and my feelings were hurt. Talking it out helps.
Remember: It’s your blog. Write what makes you happy.
I just read your post about jeans. I will tell you a little secret: Chico’s. Don’t say, yuck, it’s for old ladies. The jeans fit– well, they fit me and they stay up where they belong.
About the bloggin/writing, I just wrote a long paragraph that I deleted b/c I have been thinking about your comments and trying to respond and I don’t know what to say except I hope that you don’t stop writing or blogging and face to face or phone to phone is sometimes best for solving a ‘difference of opinion’.
You all are so wonderful. Thank you for your input on this!