And One More Thing
A comment from Perl made me think. She said that she had a blog for a while but just couldn’ keep it up. For a while I wrestled with the idea of the blog. As capricious as I seem (jumping on a plane to Texas, yikes!), before I buy into an idea I have a habit of researching things. Bags, shoes, plane tickets, and haircut research have taken years out of my life and I have vowed to stop. Earlier this year, I lost out on this particularly perfect suede bag and something inside of me snapped. I realized that all my planning and hemming and hawing got in the way of my happiness.
I have been a writer all my life. I would get compliments from teachers and professors. I had one professor tell me I was off topic but the essay was so well written that he was going to over look my digression and give me a higher grade than I perhaps deserved. I have had friends forward emails to people I don’t know just to share a story that I encapsulated so well. I keep saying one day I will write a book; my sister says instead I should write a screenplay, as my stories will translate better visually.
When I was moving away to get my Masters I decided I should start writing formally. I bought a beautiful journal with the knowledge that I like pretty things and the hope that maybe having a nice journal would keep me on point. I knew that I couldn’t make myself write everyday, but that I needed to capture the essence of my adventures and interactions. Sometime I write regularly, at other times, there are months between entries. The fact that there is no one who knows about it and no one who can comment on it allows me such a huge freedom.
My biggest trepidation about committing to a blog was there are people in blogland with rules and regulations about what it takes to have a blog. I don’t know if you’ve read some of these sites, but the entries range from humorous to despotic. You must write everyday, never write off topic for your blog, don’t be creative with colors and fonts…and on and on and on.
If I want to plaster my blog with pictures of the Backstreet Boys (Google me what?) and use flowing purple font like so I will. I mean I won’t because it’ not in my nature to do so, but if I wanted to have my blog as a homage to all that is great and wonderful about that annoying Nick Carter boy, well I should be able to do so (am I going to get hate mail for calling Nick Carter annoying?). And stay with me, but if I don’ have anything fun, wise, or irate to say, then I am not going to post. Above all, if I want to go off topic or discuss exactly what I had for breakfast this morning, then god damn it, I will.
I know this all seems awfully fired up for me to be, especially as no one has actually talked any trash about me and my blog, but I think my biggest fear is not that I will get some mean email from someone saying that as a human being, I fail miserably, but that I have failed in keeping my blog current, on topic, and visually appealing.
Is that the saddest thing or what? I am more concerned with how people perceive my writing format rather than what they think of me as a person.