But I suppose some people like to read and some people are interested. Like me. I like to read what other people ramble on about- because I'm nosey.
As a writer, I appreciate my friends and family reading these. Blogging to me is not only excellent writing practice, but it's also helpful in learning to put myself out there more: something that never gets easier no matter how much writing I've done.
Writers, like most other artists with their crafts (musicians, photographers, painters, poets, etc.), tend to hide behind their grammar and words and quips and punctuations....
This got me thinking about the actual act of blogging today. Blogging is really pretty narcissistic. Isn't this just a way for all us bloggers to toot our own horns? Pat ourselves on our own backs? Brag a little? Show off our kids? Talk about ourselves and our lives because it makes us feel more interesting? That's how I feel about it anyways. I won't lie. Sometimes I wonder if I blog to make myself feel like a more interesting person than I really am! I'm sure deep down, that element is there.
Blogging is a fancy way of saying "writing in a public diary"- hiding and revealing bits and pieces of yourself and your life that you want people to see or not see. By including and omitting certain things, we can all turn ourselves into characters of ourselves, like on reality television. It's no different really, the concept. Exhibitionists put themselves out there and the voyeurs eat it up.
I've blogged on and off for years- starting with Myspace back in the day, then a couple I started up and then soon deleted shortly after having my first kid.
Blogging takes time and energy- two things that quickly melt away after having children.
Not only that, but the content of blogging changes after children... and even more so after having 2.
This change is a pretty accurate illustration of the changes that happen to the content of your character after becoming a mother.
I used to rant about issues that irked me, people and scenarios that struck chords, injustices and current events , spilling my guts off of soapboxes and spouting theoretical bra burning. Those kinds of feelings and ideas still exist in me, but I'm so distracted most of the time right now that it takes more effort and time to get it all out than I have to spare. When I do have a window, I must just regurgitate what's freshest on my mind as simply put as possible.
In short, I'm very much a PG version of my former Rated R self, and that's quite honestly something that has been difficult for me to deal with- as I'm sure many people my age (the 30 somethings) are going through. Think Eddie Murphy "RAW" compared to Eddie Murphy Donkey from "Shrek."
That's how it feels, and it's disheartening and relieving all at the same time.
Although it's cute and endearing, I don't want to see Eddie Murphy as Donkey from "Shrek." I want to see Eddie Murphy "RAW."
This dilution of content had to happen eventually, and if it didn't happen after I had kids, I think I'd be pretty irresponsible- but the Rated R gal inside me is still in here and itching to get out and kick some ass most of the time, and that can now only happen when the little ones are tucked away in bed or T and I get a night out.
I gave up blogging for awhile because in the midst of going from childless to becoming a mother, I temporarily lost my voice. That kind of transition inevitably throws your whole being for a loop and you must rediscover who you are: After you've spent years coming into your own and finally finding yourself, you have a baby and must start all over.
Frustrating, confusing and baffling- enough introspection and self-reflection to choke on, really. Growing pains, learning to dribble with your left hand (or your right, if you're a lefty!) and plenty of personal seclusion all locked up in a pretty little box in your head.
For me, I found myself bored with the things I found myself writing about: AKA, my baby and being a mother and how blissfully happy I felt. It's all I could talk about.
My boredom made sense.
I've always been bored with happy endings- that's why I've always been turned off by chick flicks.
Don't get me wrong. I'm humbly grateful and happy with the happy ending I've created for myself in my life, but I've learned that it's not necessary to rehash my happiness and gratitude for my life and the people in it all the time in my blogs, like I ultimately had started doing- hence the boredom that resulted from going round and round.
Just because I don't talk about it all the time doesn't mean that it exists any less. It's the little moments and things that happen in day to day life that I want to write about: not the bigger picture, but the tiny threads that weave it all together.
Once I figured that out, I felt renewed and inspired to blog again.
As it goes, my favorite things to read that other people write/blog about are the itty bitty kinks in their simple realities. I appreciate narrative from that place in people's minds that they usually don't voice because they are afraid that they will be judged as being rude or crude or tacky or inappropriate- because we all have those thoughts.
I like to see some vulnerability. I like to see flaws and imperfections. That's the real stuff and that's where I've found the best kinds of food for thought within other people's writing.
A little cynicism, a little skepticism, a little criticism, a little more ism isms... I prefer dryness over the ooey gooey. What's your neurosis? I want to know. Give me your uncool side. Give me real.
I found this quote back in high school and it always resonated in my mind. I keep it on a Post-It in my notebook to remind myself :
"The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads."
~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958
~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958
That might sound crappy- the happy chucklehead part- but let me explain. When I read, let's say, creative nonfiction for example, I don't particularly care to read other people gushing about how fantastic their lives are. Not that I don't appreciate other people's happiness by any means.
It's just not interesting to read about. I'd rather realize the writer's happiness through their writing- realize the blogger's happiness through their blogging- through a situation or a memory or a conversation or a happening or a photograph- rather than have it told verbatim.
Don't tell me. Show me!
