I write pretty much the same way I speak. Not only do my speech patterns show up in my blogging, but so does my attitude towards life. Positivism is my greatest tool for survival. Okay, yes, I’m guilty of being tempted to get on WordPress and bitch and complain about things. But I don’t do it in real life unless someone specifically asks me my opinion on something (the weather may just be the exception to that rule), and I don’t like doing it here.
Thing is, we can all be different people online than we are in real life. Not only can we appear to be who we’re not, we can put forth a persona for ourselves that masks our true feelings. I reserve the ‘who I’m not’ part of my personality for my fiction – in most cases. There’s a certain part of me that thrills in writing horrible villains, which I’m not in real life.
Is it worth asking you all if who you write on your blog is who you are? Would you admit it if you weren’t? What I’d really like to know though, is whether or not you’ve ever analysed the content of your posts to see if it reflects your true self.
Using my mad paint skills, I drew a badge for everyone who joined me in blogging for Just Jot It January this year! Here, again, is the list of participants:
Someone, not that long ago, asked me what the difference is between blogging and journaling. I had to think about it. I love blogging because it allows me to put in black and white my thoughts, my feelings. I can show you (my followers) what I see, both by description and in pictures. I can share as much or as little of my life as I wish.
It’s like having a box – a full box – that only I can peek into. I can release the contents of my box or I can keep them hidden. There are things in my box which I will never tell – that’s one of the drawbacks of using my real name. But if I was to go undercover of a pseudonym, would I share then? Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes I think about saying a certain thing and I’ll even sometimes type it. But then I’ll see it in the preview and I’ll cringe, or I’ll just shake my head and go back to remove it.
I think that’s the difference between blogging and journaling. If I was writing a journal I might leave it all in. All the dirt, the stuff that makes me red in the face and the things that I don’t want my friends and family to read. Whether it’s personal to me or personal to them, I don’t want them to know everything I’m thinking. Who would?
I also love my audience. Not necessarily because I want to be read, but because I enjoy the interaction. I don’t blog for likes (I know I’ve mentioned this before, but this is stream of consciousness – shoot me), I blog for our shared experience. I write to know I’m not alone and to let others know they’re not alone in our experiences of life.
We’ve all felt cold, we’ve all known pain, whether it be physical or emotional – we all know what water tastes like. Can we explain it all? No. But if enough words go out there, maybe, just maybe, a sentence or two will connect with us, and so we can say to one another: Yes! That’s exactly it!
That’s the best feeling of all.
I’m glad I blog. I have a journal as well on LiveJournal, which only about three people read. It’s also fun. It’s more personal – but I don’t have to worry about anyone I know coming across it.
I love my followers here. I wouldn’t give them up – not even for a journal.
P.S. I’m not online today, but I’ll answer all your comments when I come back tomorrow night.
I’ll be off in a couple of hours to take my mother home and spend the weekend there with her. She doesn’t have internet, so my status will be set to “offline” for the weekend. If there’s time I’ll write a post to schedule. If not, I’ll see you all Sunday night.
Take care everyone!
Oh, and here’s a pretty picture of my deck from two days ago. The two feet of snow looked like foam – it certainly kept it’s own shape!
On the final day of Just Jot it January, I’d like to take the opportunity to say a huge thank you everyone who participated. I discovered some fantastic blogs during the course of the month. I was going to design a badge for everyone who joined in, but, life happened and I ran out of time. If I get a chance over the weekend, I’ll send one to each of you.
So here are a list of the amazing people who stood with me in this event, held my hand, and played along in the fun that has been JusJoJan! I strongly suggest you check them out if you haven’t already.
In the seemingly random order of the pingbacks:
Margaret (Myas) at A Tragic Lady But No TB. Her blog is like sitting down over a cup of coffee in a warm and inviting kitchen.
Willow at Willowdot21 for wonderful and adventurous poetry.
Today is unofficially my one year blog anniversary!
I joined WordPress in July 2012, wrote one post and promptly forgot about my blog. Then, on January 30th of last year, I began what has grown to what you see here. I had no idea what to expect at first. I remember being both thrilled and confused when I received my first ‘like.’ Who could possibly like me? I thought. How would anyone even know I exist?
The more I explored my reader and found people with similar interests, the more I learned. And then one day I took a chance. I made a joke in a comment on someone else’s blog. He was fairly new at the game as well and, as it turned out, he seemed as amazed as I was at how many people had noticed him. Granted, at the time I only had ten followers (he was one) and he had already 300. It won’t surprise some of you that that fellow blogger was the one and only Opinionated Man. I’m so grateful to him for teaching me so much about blogging, and especially how to form friendships here in our WordPress world. Thank you, Jason, my dear.
In celebration of my anniversary, I’m re-posting my first post. I’m putting it up on my fiction blog, since my foray into blogging started with my semi-fictional series about a boy: a poor boy who survives abuse and rises up to become a star.
While it’s not fireworks; nor anthems; nor parades, it means something to me. I hope you’ll go today, and each day to read it and to celebrate with me the life of a character I care so much about.
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
On this, the fifteen and a halfth day (yes, I made that up because I want there to be a middle) of Just Jot it January, I’d like to refresh things by getting as many people involved as possible – with a prompt!
It was so much fun for me that I’d like to see what you can come up with. Yes, YOU! Find ten words of your own and redefine them. Post them on your site and then link your post back here in the comments so we can all see them. As an added incentive, I will re-blog the first three people who link back their post.
The following was my contribution from last July:
1. Barrage – how old you are when you can legally drink
2. Brandy – comes after brand C
3. Mystical – a foggy giggle
4. Ineffability – the spontaneous and continuous use of the eff word
5. Donut – a person enamoured with the expletives of Homer Simpson
6. Aftermath – period of time when one must go to history class
7. Morbid – before the end of the auction
8. Philosophize – speculate about something hardening (tell me if you get it)
9. Summarily – …and some miserably
10. Distract – the opposite of dat tract
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
When I started this blog, I did so with the intention of writing well thought out, succinct, and grammatically perfect articles. They would all be of a decent length as well as entertaining, informative, and interesting. I would write to impress potential employers who would be so wowed by my writing skills that, after reading any given post, they would be standing in line waiting to throw money at me.
Apart from the fact that I haven’t actually applied for a job anywhere yet, I seem to have failed. I’ve become lazy. My posts are getting shorter and shorter, and surely having a goal of “jotting” something down every day doesn’t help me on my quest to achieve greatness with every article.
I’ve fallen into the trap of writing what gets read most often on WordPress – 500 or less words. “Less is more” has become my mantra, and conciseness my overlord. So while I might be getting better at stating my thoughts in short, sharp, crispy little pieces, my personal goal has gone by the wayside.
It’s not that I don’t put a fair bit of thought into my blog posts: most of them anyway. Yes, I’m guilty of just posting what I’m thinking at times, like last night while I was staring, drooling over a picture of a white sandy beach. But for the rest of them, I try to come up with something my followers will want to read.
But this concise writing is habit forming. I find that if I do try to write more, it ends up rambling. Then I edit it to make it sound good and, well, it ends up shorter every time.
It’s ironic in a way, that behind the scenes I’m trying to cut an originally 214K word manuscript down to a more reasonable 140K, and here on my blog I’m whining about not being able to write enough in one article, isn’t it? Perhaps that’s my problem. I’m getting into the habit everywhere. Maybe I should post the clumps of text on my blog that I scoop out of my novel!
Wow, is this article ever going downhill fast.
To conclude, I’ve decided I need to do something about this. I’m going to try to write a more professional-sounding article once a week that’s between 600-800 words in length. I’m hesitant to commit to a certain day of the week, though maybe having a deadline will help. If I’m ever going to write professionally, it’s a habit I need to get into.
That way maybe I won’t feel as guilty about writing the occasional one-liner with a picture of a beach.
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Post on your site, and join Just Jot it January. The rules are easy!
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
4. Have fun!
lindaghill.com 