Lots of mixed feelings here. How much of your life do you share? I read an article about the blogging life in The New York Times Magazine and I’m sure it is zipping its way around the internet and doesn’t need me, but in case you missed it–click.
Lots of mixed feelings here. How much of your life do you share? I read an article about the blogging life in The New York Times Magazine and I’m sure it is zipping its way around the internet and doesn’t need me, but in case you missed it–click.
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 
Yep. Mixed feelings here too — too many to articulate right now.
BoingBoing recently wrote a post about an stripper in TX who happens to write really well. Suddenly her site is flooded with readers and she’s taken all the posts down. She wants to check them for names and telling details and remove those before putting them up
The blog referenced is http://graceundressed.blogspot.com/
Apparently the surge of attention has freaked her out a bit.
I’ve learned a few hard lessons by blogging. The NYT author summed it up for me with, “As Henry and I fought, I kept coming back to the idea that I had a right to say whatever I wanted. I don’t think I understood then that I could be right about being free to express myself but wrong about my right to make that self-expression public in a permanent way.”
It’s hard to say how much I share. I share a lot, especially since I post photos. But then there’s so much I don’t share, and I’ll never share. I think what I don’t share comes automatic. I’m not going to share it just like I’m not going to talk about it to certain people.
Sometimes I make an effort to think, “Am I willing for the whole world to read this?” But I think that’s too much for me to grasp, so then I think “Am I willing for my mother to read this?” “Am I willing for that idiot at work I hated to read this?” “Am I willing for a pervert to read/look at this?”
Sometimes I am not sure what my answer is to those questions, but what it comes down to is, “Do I want to write about this and share it with the good readers I know I have?” There are things you just can’t worry too much about.
I guess I try to strike a balance between sharing enough emotion (but not necessarily personal info) so it’s interesting to both me and the readers but not so much as to expose myself or anyone. Isn’t that true for all writing?
Blogging isn’t as exceptional as people think it is, imo. It’s new, it’s instant, it’s archived forever…but good writing will always be good writing. And writing crap about your love life and friends and rivals is, well, crap, even if it gets 10,000 hits a day.
MPJ, though you keep a lot hidden, you expose a lot too. I’m awed by that, and can understand why so many other things about yourself you keep to yourself. That’s got to be wise.
Kathryn, I thought of you when I read the article because I well remember things you experienced as a blogger. In fact, your experience made it clear to me what I didn’t want to write about.
Shelli, you seem to have a good balance on your blog. Sometimes I wonder if I want my mom-in-law to read what I’ve written, but then I don’t want her to read ANYTHING I’ve written. But if I don’t want my husband to read it, I don’t write it.
SBW, You have a wonderful balance on your blog–these amusing or interesting moments that reveal a great deal about your world, but when I really think about it, I hardly know anything about you. And I noticed you scaled back your blog a bit–taking out things in the sidebar–getting more simple.
And yes, crap is crap. Only wish I was better at detecting it before it stinks up the house.
Oh, and Kathryn, I went to that link and am…I don’t know. I have no words because I’m so unsettled. Wow. And thanks.
I try to share limited personal info. Too much is still not a balanced view of who we are; that’s the limited nature of the internet.
Love the artwork, by the way.
I read it, with a weird combination of greed and distance. On the one hand, feeling identified and on the other, completely different from this young woman with her tattoos… Interesting for me was that GREG read it, too. Mind you, he does not read my blog (“I’m living it” is his line). So having him read that article gave us something to talk about vis-a-vis blogging at large, and we wound up talking late last night in the kitchen about blogging, sharing with “strangers,” self-revelation, how memoirs must have been perceived fifty years ago, support groups… all good fodder.
I think it is one of the fundamental facts of blogging that you have to find your comfort zone with what and how much you share – and know why you’re doing it. Maybe for me it’s about the intention. As I told Greg, for me it may well be equal parts self-care (writing=checking in with myself) and community/sharing (writing=connecting).
This is where I start getting neurotic myself and end my comment!!
xo Jena
i did read it.
my husband shared it with me.
it raises good questions, one’s I think many if not the majority of bloggers have had.
all i’ve ever written has been non-fiction, including what I would put in “memoir” category. So blogging is not such a leap for me. in many ways, the same rules apply for me, as to what I’ll share, not share. I’d say if anything I share less on my blog than I might in an essay, as an essay has the benefit of editing and so many re-writes. 🙂