It appears as though apologies are in order. Sowwy.
(ew. why did I just say it like that?)
For those of you late to the party, I had a little creative writing prompt up on my blog yesterday, asking friends and foes alike to describe a very good moment in their day in explicit detail. Since many of us here are writers (either formally or informally) and all of us are readers, I thought it would be kind of fun/terrifying to write for feeling instead of for update, and to share it and support one another's craft.
But then for the first 4 hours when no one trampled over each other to get to my comments to say "This is the best idea ever I love love love it, I'm writing it RIGHT NOW, I'll be back! (PS You're the best blogger ever!)" I grew tingly with fear at my little ditty moment hanging out there all alone and I deleted it and put up a lame post about expensive baby toys. Meanwhile, a handful of very sweet people were actually looking forward to this exercise, and working on it, and apparently, had other things to be doing in the middle of the workday and were going to get back to it later. What?
So yeah, sorry. I will be revisiting this prompt, promise.
But that leads me to a little explanation about how I blog, and why things like yesterday tend to happen over here at Fancy Notion.
I am a severely, cripplingly private person. I keep 95% of my thoughts in my head, always. I don't like to reveal them to anyone, not my best friends, not my husband, not my co-workers or strangers on the bus. It's not that they are bad thoughts (well, some of them are. let's be real some of them are really, fucking wacko - just like yours) just that they are mine, fresh and untouched and clear and original, and I like to treasure them without others' opinions transforming those thoughts. I am a very...porous... individual. I absorb other people's thoughts and comments to the point of insanity. Once I hear someone else's opinion on a song, on a book, on fashion or the taste of cilantro, I can't not remember it and take it into consideration. This makes me very sensitive, and obviously, very confused much of the time.
So then, why in god's name do I blog? And publicly, without anonymity, at that?
The fuck if I know, really. I came here during the wedding planning to find people to keep me sane, and then stuck around because I made friends and I didn't want to lose them, and then I learned how much I loved writing - producing something, seeing it before my eyes, sharing the craft. I didn't know about anonymity when I started, so it became impossible to change that halfway.
Everyone has a different system to blogging, and personally I follow the "scream and then run away" method. When I write a post, I write it all at once in about 10 minutes - bam, diarrhea of the fingers - and then slap it up there on the internet without even reading it through once -as evidenced by my frequent typos. I'm not an idiot, I just don't proofread, because if I proofread I'd give the fear time to kick in and I would end up NEVER hitting post. Most of the time this works for me. Some of the time I make bad choices, or embarrassing ones, or boring ones, and I've learned to live with that.
So anyway. Just wanted to let everyone know (mostly the non-bloggers because I think the other bloggers know this already) that keeping up this page is hard for me. It requires a lot of thought and more guts than I think I sometimes have, and a skin that doesn't tear like paper, as mine tends to do from now and then. And total, complete, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pantsness is the only way I've found to handle it. And when one is flying by the seat of one's pants, one will occasionally have a panic attack and run around screaming, tearing down all of the blinds and knocking over chairs and pull out the couch cushion stuffing (that's my description of yesterday.) in craziness.
I want to know - if you are a blogger, what system do you follow to create posts? Do you agonize, or hit-and-run?
I am a hit and run kind of blogger. I started our blog fo Eric and I to stay in touch with our families and found so much more in the community that it offers. So everything I post is on my mind, personal, but not so private that I would not want my mama to read or a patient to find online.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally an agonize while I write and then hit publish sort of person. I am not a fan of the "schedule" function (although I did it today for totally sappy reasons).
ReplyDeleteumm, apparently, I avoid. haven't written a post in a couple weeks, and it's been probably months since I was posting on a regular basis. I think I'm having a crisis of purpose. but anyway.
ReplyDeletewhen I do blog, I read through it about ten billion times before I can hit Post. usually takes me about 5 minutes of mouse-hovering-over button before I just go for it.
I loved the idea of your project yesterday, I thought about writing something for it, cannot say for sure that I would have followed through on it, but I was looking forward to reading what others posted. Definitely don't blame you for panicking over it though, I would have been nervous about it all day too, but probably wouldn't have been brave enough to delete it and then Talk about deleting it.
I procrastinate and hover. I have, oh, maybe 10 posts in various states of completeness. My brain has a ton of ideas... but only once a week or so. So I write a ton for about three hours, post whatever looks mostly done and get the hell out of dodge. And I am a terrible re-editor. I just reworked three post I put up a week ago because I just HAD to.
ReplyDeleteI'm a hit and run. I tend to write between my first cup of coffee and getting into the shower. The things that concern me at that time of morning never end up being very interesting to anyone but me.
ReplyDeleteBut I keep writing it anyway. I'm an only. I need the attention.
Keep writing. And throw the prompt up again.
Oh yeah, I second the calls to put up the prompt again. I have my mom and darling nephew in town this weekend so I might not get to it right away but I want to give it a shot.
ReplyDeleteMy blog has a crises of identity daily. I feel like the blogs that are worth reading, that in fact I read, are honest and (sometimes) controversial. But I'm not sure I am that brave! And I keep meaning to fill in our immediate families on its existence - but then balk b/c I kind of like writing without having to keep them in mind.
ReplyDeleteYes, throw the prompt up! I was going to write my favorite moment of the day. And I promise I will!
Yeah, it's pretty well-established that you and I are writing method polar opposites, Kerry. I'm an agonizer. It often takes me days or even WEEKS to finish a post, and before I publish I read it 10,000 times, changing words slightly here and there. But then towards the end I get tired and sloppy. Seriously, if after the jillionth time reading through it I'm not 100% satisfied because there was an awkward transition, or something kind of doesn't make much sense because I wrote that part ONE DAY and the other part like FIVE DAYS LATER, I just let it go. Finally, finally.
ReplyDeleteI envy hit-and-run. I wish I could be like that. But I can't seem to will it out of me, so blogging remains for me an arduous task.
I do like sharing, though. Sometimes I think I overshare. Like when I was working on the post of my honeymoon pictures, I started worrying. Here I felt like I was showing the pictures to friends, but ANYBODY could see them. How much of my life do I want to put online? But then I glanced over the photos again and I was like, eh, it's not like I'd be mortified if my grandmother saw them. But it's not even images, it's more the words I hurl out into the ether on a regular basis. I love sharing with people, and I love getting the feedback. Which is why I am keeping my page from most of the people I know in real life. I want to be able to talk with honesty about what's going on, but sometimes I truly worry about WHY it's important to me and the potential implications.
ANYWAY. WOULD THIS COMMENTER JUST PLEASE SHUT UP.
Occasional blind-tearing-down is fine, but I truly hope we never make you nervous and crazy to the point where you delete your whole blog. I know the sting of putting something out there and feeling like it got shot down/ignored, so I feel you. But I think many of us would participate if you put it back up. I am very very sowwy that we didn't indicate that earlier.
hit and run, baby, hit and run.
ReplyDeleteDon't stop posting!!
I was totally into your idea yesterday and I don't know why I didn't just say so in the comments! I know if that was me I would be sitting on pins and needles waiting. But I guess I forget that other people are (just about) as neurotic as me.
ReplyDeleteI'm a total agonizer when it comes to posting. And I have the exact same affliction as you - being ridiculously influenced by other people - but for me it plays out by having to think through every. single. word. I post.
On a couple of occasions I've been able to get closer to type-and-go but on very specific (usually emotional) topics. The fact that this takes so long for me sometimes makes it hard to keep going because it is a large investment in time, and writing isn't really something I would say I'm committed to for its own sake. But I do get something out of it, and I hope that continues.
And I take it the writing prompt is on hold for now? I started writing, but I'm not totally sure if it was going to make it up today, what with all the agonizing and all I still have to do...
Oh sweet jeebus.
ReplyDeleteSo you know the fuckery I had with my post yesterday? Basically I lost it while I'd opened it up and was dithering about editing it because I was having a panic attack about it. For precisely the same reasons mentioned in your post.
The approach I take to posts varies, actually. There are some (yesterday's, for example) that I write when overwhelmed with some feeling or totally consumed by some idea, and I can't sleep or focus on anything else till I spit it out of me and hit publish (or put it in my diary, which maybe, I should do more of). (I always proofread though. I'm an obsessional, so could never *truly* be a hit-and-run.)
Others, I will spend HOURS writing, re-reading, re-wording, till I'm finally happy with. But they too are essentially hit-and-run in that I can't leave a post and come back to it later. Half-abandoned drafts always get completely ditched. It has to flow somehow, to work.
Recently, in fact just yesterday morning, I decided that I was ONLY going to try to posts that I felt I absolutely had to write when feeling strongly about something. I was a bit tired of the 'updates', and wondering what purpose they serve for me exactly, since I *do* blog anonymously, and friends and family aren't reading along. But actually, of course it has become that some of my readers now feel like friends and family. So, updates are likely to continue. I would like to blog more unselfconsciously, though. Try to lose my awareness of my audience while I'm writing posts. I'd like to see what that does for the things I come up with.
AND re the creative writing prompt. I saw it in my phone, and I never comment on my phone. And I was thinking about it. And I can take DAYS to get round to commenting (and sometimes reading) posts. Cause, you know, real life gets in the fucking way. So, bring the prompt back. But be aware of my update (I'm going away on holiday!), so my response might take a while.
I'm with you on the private/porous mix. It's why I blog so infrequently. I also blog whenever inspiration/time strikes and I often write several posts, which is the only reason I ever have a few posts in a row.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to do the prompt, but I was also on my phone, so I "keep unread" to get back to it later.
You're rad.
I completely work my butt off. Except Saturdays, when I write whatever I can get out there between whenever I wake up, and noon. I wish we'd had blogs when I was young, it would be so fun to read that record now. Agony does recede, over time:).
ReplyDeleteI both agonize and hit-and-run. Some posts, I edit obsessively; there are about 10 posts on my blog that I haven't published because they just don't "feel right" to me. But sometimes I write something on a whim and publish it and then wish I could take it back because objectively, it sucks. Also, this week I added a second bloody post *on the same day as another post* because no one commented on my first one and I hated it and I thought it was boring and dumb and ALL TEN of my readers were going to bail on me.
ReplyDelete"I am a very...porous... individual." THIS. I'm definitely an agonizer, and an insecure mess, which is why most of my blogging is about things other than myself - that way, people either think I'm cool for the things I like/am interested in, or they just ignore it. Not saying it's a productive or particularly brave method . . . and in theory it's something I'm working on. In practice I've been spending more time on my private journal, and also watching a lot of stupid TV. So.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think your hit-and-run method is working just fine, for the record. So keep it up!
I keep my blog as if it were a personal journal, a collection of daily life that I may someday want to look back on for sentimental reasons. So there's not a lot of agonizing, but there also isn't a very big audience. Word has gotten out to my family and close friends that I'm keeping a blog, so it's strange to think that anyone from my uncle to my coworker could be getting such a close peek inside my head. After years of keeping a diary hidden under the mattress. I think it is an experiment for us all, but it is fun to be doing it together.
ReplyDelete