Thoughts on Blogging

Dec.9-08

I confess I don't really understand this current blogging craze. I kept diaries for years, so I should have been the first one to hop on the blogging wagon. My diaries, though, were private. No one would ever read them, unless I left them behind when i died. A blog, on the other hand, is meant to be read by the living while the author is still alive. I' not too comfortable with that thought. I don't mind people reading stories or non fiction articles that I have sold to a publisher. in fact, I expect and want those things to be read. That's professional writing, which is a different creature than blogging. I feel that blogging as more personal.

In view of my earlier diary writing, i am interesting in blogging,but I don't know how personal I would allow myself to be. I am a very private person. Most writers are. We keep our personal life separate from our writing life.

How private am I? I had a mild stroke in 1994. During that first year of recovery, there was some concern as to whether I would live, given that I had been diagnosed with an extremely rare neuro-vascular disease. When I thought that I was dying,my first concern was, naturally, the welfare of my children, then twelve and nine years old. My second concern was the diaries I would leave behind. I intended the diaries I had written as a record of my kid's lives to be theirs.The other diaries, though, the personal ones, alarmed me. There was information in those journals that I wanted to remain private for all eternity. So I burned those diaries. It was extremely windy the day I burned the diaries, so I couldn't burn them outside.

I put the diaries in a tin bucket, set the bucket on the floor, and burned the diaries. The bucket got so hot it melted a hole in the carpet underneat the bucket.

I had a had time explaining that burned circle to Dale.

Now, fourteen years later, I realize that destroying the diariest was a stupid move. I can no longer go back to the diaries and check facts.

This all goes to prove my ambivalence toward blogging.

I do not want to pay for the privilege of blogging. At least, i don't want to pay at this point in time. I may change my mind if I continue this particular journal.

in the meantime, I'll blog  in this portfolio.