Comments on: The stuff that gets in the way.

By: Velvet Verbosity

Velvet Verbosity — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:46:53 +0000

Huh. I haven’t been “here” in a long long while. Pretty much for the reasons you’ve laid out here in this post. I was having a “life moment”, and it lasted for a good year and I just couldn’t blog. (No blogging meant no reading either, I guess.)

Anyway…it is the weird paradox that blogging sets up for us. For a large majority of bloggers, it’s real time autobiography, and when you write an autobiography, there are people that get hurt. Unless your life and all the people in it were perfect, in which case no one’s going to read that autobiography anyway.

I have struggled with this from day one, but it got worse when I started getting actual readers, and then it got a whole lot worse when things in my life suddenly took a nose dive because of some stuff other people were doing.

So I would go to my blog, knowing that there were a handful of people out there expecting me to SAY SOMETHING. But how could I? How could I blog a writing challenge when the only thing I could think about was that I was in so much pain I felt like I had been skinned alive? If that pain were caused by a disease, or something where no one was at fault, I probably would’ve written about that. But this pain was related to some suck that other people had perpetrated, and to talk about it meant I’d opening up a huge can of worms and I wouldn’t be able to unsay it later when I felt better.

So my blog went dark. Just like that.

One of my readers emailed me and offered support, and urged me to keep going. So I did.

Still, I’m constantly aware of the paradox. Of how I have some relationship to my readers, and yet…that relationship is with only one tiny slice of all of me.

Such is the dilemma of a blogger.

By: Your Girl Mishi

Your Girl Mishi — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:53:44 +0000

I love that I can tell you everything! And that you know you can do the same.

xo
Your Girl Mishi´s last blog ..Weekly Winners {The Print Edition}

By: Amo

Amo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:25:57 +0000

Something I’ve learned over the years and have to remind myself of daily: “Just because we have characters in our story, doesn’t mean we are at liberty to share them.” I think that we all have to self-censor whether it’s in this internet world or our outside lives. Everything I’m told by a friend is sacred.

Especially you.

Love you!
Amo´s last blog ..Filed under: Only Happens to Amo

By: Jennifer S^N

Jennifer S^N — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:15:36 +0000

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life p.78

By: Karen Bannan

Karen Bannan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:31:59 +0000

OK, first off…I love your tags. Had to laugh when I saw the “I need fucking therapy” tag.

I am having a similar issue with my blog. I’m finding that stuff I write is coming back to bite me in the butt. I wrote about playdates, and this new acquaintance completely overreacted when her kid tapped my kid. Her kid is two, mine is 16-months. I know it was because I wrote that when kids go off on a playdate and the mom does nothing, I tend to let those friends go away. Meanwhile, I meant when the kid continuously pummels my kid or wrecks my house. Not a tiny, teeny tap on the chest.

I am still learning about what’s too much, too little, TMI. But I will say that it sounds like you need to unburden yourself. I have a feeling I know what you’re hinting at. If you ever want to talk to a complete stranger who also happens to be a fellow blogger, I’m always available to listen.

Thanks for giving me a smile tonight. And I am sorry you’re going through something right now.
Karen Bannan´s last blog ..Échappé, Glissade, Pas de Bourrée — No Way!