Thursday, June 18, 2009

I think I'm doing this wrong...

So when I was ten years old or so, I was a playwright. I wrote a play about pilgrims and indians for my cousins and sister to perform on Thanksgiving. Now let's just excuse the patriarchal overtones of the condescending pilgrims and the vulnerable, grateful indians. I was ten, people! In fact, what I remember best about the actual performance of my play, which took place at the country club my family attended, (somehow talking about pilgrims and indians at a posh country club seems particularly dissonant to my adult self but anyhoo...) is that it had a lot of movement (I picture about twelve pre-teens shuffling around with "scripts" of spiral-bound notebook paper, patiently taking my fervent hissed and whispered direction - "no! over THERE!") and I had no self-consciousness about the whole thing at all. Brilliant disaster, indeed.

Then as a teen, that self-consciousness crept in, but truly, how could it have been stopped? The two go together like milk and cookies. So while I recognized that I wanted to keep a journal, I was constantly stopping because I was certain that I was not writing for myself, but rather for the fans that would ultimately unearth my insightful teenage memoirs years and years after my death. I know it's folly, but I'm just telling you how it was. I have a friend from college who has successfully kept a daily journal since he was a sophomore in high school. How envious I am of him, for his discipline and ability to see the bigger picture, what a treasure those are!

I think I have been plagued by the same doubts regarding any blog I would put together. As a recovering person, I am familiar with the phrase, "egomaniac with an inferiority complex" and that describes me to a T! I have interest in so many blogs that are out there, but I am not a mommy, I am not a chef, my life is a series of projects with loose ends and I can't imagine that anyone would want to read the musings of a daft individual like myself.

I have been getting some mentorship from a dear family member whose friendship and companionship has been so valuable to me throughout my whole life and specifically about my on-line persona. She has navigated the blogger waters and has carved quite a comfortable space for herself in this world. I admire her because she has a terrific, strong voice that I'd not heard before, but that I never doubted was there. She tells me, "You've gotta get blogging!" We are going to BlogHer together and I want to have some roots put down for myself in this world.

So I expect you will be hearing more from me, I just don't know what I will be saying yet.

2 comments:

Alison said...

There's no right way to blog. (She said, feeling like she used to be a much better blogger.)

And you're going to BlogHer? Jelly. I've never been able to go.

Anyway, this is your space. Do what you want with it!

Sallyacious said...

I popped over from your Twitter profile when I saw you were following me. What can I say but that "I have interest in so many blogs that are out there, but I am not a mommy, I am not a chef, my life is a series of projects with loose ends and I can't imagine that anyone would want to read the musings of a daft individual like myself..." is a pretty accurate description of the kind of blog I write too.

I started blogging as a way to keep my friends and family up to date on my life, and somewhere along the line, it became a place to explore my Self. And somewhere along the line, the worry about whether anyone was reading it went away as well. I write for me now. Lo and behold, that appeals to more people than just my parents and husband. Who knew?

Write the stuff you feel compelled to write. It will resonate with someone.