To blog or not to blog
I find myself feeling very ambiguous about blogging lately and haven't sorted it all out in my own mind yet.
As I've mentioned, I find the process pretty therapeutic but not as much as private journaling. While being aware of a potential audience has helped me in a way in that it forces me to keep moving forward and not just wallow, on the other hand I find myself not blogging everything I'm really feeling even if those feelings needs expression because I'm worried about being too revealing, giving away too much of myself, or looking too pathetic. At the same time, I'm not sure that stopping altogether or blocking access to everyone else is the solution for me either.
I also set myself parameters for this blog, ones I want to stick to, deliberately keeping it about my own personal journey in healing and rebuilding my life (one of the reasons, in addition to respecting their privacy, I don't talk much about my sons' lives). At the same time, there are issues in the world that are tempting me, issues about which I have always felt passionately. South Dakota taking the option of abortion away from women, for example, the HPV vaccine which has disgustingly become a political issue in the States, Walmart and Plan B, or the Arianna/George Clooney ghost-blogging issue. There are a few solutions to that: just blog about those issues already - I mean, any rules are mine to break - or create another blog or just comment on others' blogs when they discuss those issues (though some blog entries are so good I suspect my comments would be more along the lines of 'ditto' *laugh*). I don't seem to have the energy for any of it these days.
And time is playing a part here in an ironical way. I AM starting to live my life, at least some of the time. And I'd rather be living it than blogging. Or at least away from the damn computer when I'm not working. That's a GOOD thing but it means less blogging.
And yes, I realize I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be. I can blog or not depending on whether I want to or not, whether it's right for me or not, and can blog on whatever I want if I can figure out what it is I want to say.
I guess this was just my usual long, meandering route to explain why I'm blogging less often lately.
For today, I'm gonna go out and enjoy the sunshine.
As I've mentioned, I find the process pretty therapeutic but not as much as private journaling. While being aware of a potential audience has helped me in a way in that it forces me to keep moving forward and not just wallow, on the other hand I find myself not blogging everything I'm really feeling even if those feelings needs expression because I'm worried about being too revealing, giving away too much of myself, or looking too pathetic. At the same time, I'm not sure that stopping altogether or blocking access to everyone else is the solution for me either.
I also set myself parameters for this blog, ones I want to stick to, deliberately keeping it about my own personal journey in healing and rebuilding my life (one of the reasons, in addition to respecting their privacy, I don't talk much about my sons' lives). At the same time, there are issues in the world that are tempting me, issues about which I have always felt passionately. South Dakota taking the option of abortion away from women, for example, the HPV vaccine which has disgustingly become a political issue in the States, Walmart and Plan B, or the Arianna/George Clooney ghost-blogging issue. There are a few solutions to that: just blog about those issues already - I mean, any rules are mine to break - or create another blog or just comment on others' blogs when they discuss those issues (though some blog entries are so good I suspect my comments would be more along the lines of 'ditto' *laugh*). I don't seem to have the energy for any of it these days.
And time is playing a part here in an ironical way. I AM starting to live my life, at least some of the time. And I'd rather be living it than blogging. Or at least away from the damn computer when I'm not working. That's a GOOD thing but it means less blogging.
And yes, I realize I'm making it more complicated than it needs to be. I can blog or not depending on whether I want to or not, whether it's right for me or not, and can blog on whatever I want if I can figure out what it is I want to say.
I guess this was just my usual long, meandering route to explain why I'm blogging less often lately.
For today, I'm gonna go out and enjoy the sunshine.
posted by SwampHag at 11:58 AM
2 Comments:
The question of topics was ultimately the one that made me decide to move onto Wordpress from Blogger. The ability to categorize posts without losing the focus of the blog made a big difference. After all, part of ADHD is "channel changing". And part of rebuilding a life is having opinions -- strongly held opinions -- about issues and events happening around you. I don't think there's any blog rule that says hey, your blog focus is THIS, so you can't blog about THAT. I just think you should blog about what you feel like blogging on, because it's your blog and you can do what you want.
As to time, here's something to consider....there's a place for a short, sweet paragraph post and a time for a longer, more thought out post. Making the time to blog has been my gift to me, not a chore, and it's something that I wouldn't have done if I handwrote it. On days that I just don't have the time but still want to blog something, I'll pick a photo that I took that day. There are other days where I could've written a dang book on stuff but didn't because I either didn't have time or the mindshare for it. Those get saved as drafts and either dumped or finished within a week.
Blogging tools help too. When I see something on a site that I want to use, I use the Performancing Firefox extension to blog from so it keeps the link and excerpt I've selected -- that makes blogging a one-click process.
It would be a loss for you not to blog -- for me and I think for you...give yourself more room to do whatever you want and I'll bet you'll have more fun with it...it should be fun or at least rewarding!
Thanks for the encouragement and the tips. It's good to know that about Wordpress. ;-) And ya, one day I'll invest in a camera (any pics I share here are ones taken with friends' cameras).
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