I'm struggling a little bit with blogging, & it all started when I began reading other people's blogs.
They - whoever the universal "they" of the Blogging Universe are - say that you have to read & comment on others' blogs if you want to put yourself out there enough to get readers of your own, so about a year ago, I started reading lots of other blogs. The list of blogs whose feeds inhabit my Google Reader has since grown by leaps & bounds (what a dumb phrase).
But my blog is different than the others I read. Because it's not very much about me at all, is it? I only tell you stories; I never tell you about me.
The blogs I like most are the ones that give me real insight into the writers' lives & loves. The blogs I get most excited to read are the ones written by strong characters who tell me about themselves & their emotions, who allow me to feel like I know the characters in their lives. In my last three posts, I gave you a photo of a trash can, an angry story of a dining experience gone wrong, & a rant against birds in public spaces. Based on my words, what do you know about me? Nothing, except that I have a keen eye for street trash & I dislike poor restaurant service & winged pets. Deep.
A lot of people read my blog who know me in real life - my mom, my boss, scads of folks who are too embarrassed to admit that they read it because they only know me from jobs we had together when we were 15 or through friends of friends or whatever (PS: Don't be embarrassed, glad you're here). But because so many of these people actually know me, I can't go balls-to-the-wall & be as me as I want to be.
That doesn't make sense, does it? I should be able to be more me with the people I know than with complete strangers, but there's always the fear of those you know in real life knowing too much about you - somehow, that's rarely a concern with stranger. But it's not like I want to start writing a Xanga site here; this doesn't need to be a journal of my emotions; at the same time, maybe it needs to be more than it is now. Maybe it needs more of me.
There are plenty of things I'm feeling that I can't help but often think aren't appropriate for my blog, for this space. So what do I do? Do I recreate my space? Turn it into something new? It's mine, I'm allowed. But will that taint it? Will people be less interested? And how will I draw lines between sharing & over-sharing? Is it better if I fade off & start a new, anonymous blog someplace else? That seems like a wussy thing to do, & I'm not particularly interested. But how do I go about becoming more me in the space that was meant to become a manifestation of me to begin with?
It's time for a change, or at least a pick-me-up. But how?
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a blog by Kate Kaput