State of the Onion…

Blogs are like paring knives, with each cut into the surface you get a little closer to the core.

So riddle me this fellow onions- why do we do it?

Fame, fortune, revenge?

It’s a writer’s medium, the weapon of choice for those who prefer the written word to express inner thoughts and feelings.

Expressing is only part of the communication equation, somebody must read the words and respond to complete it.

So why do we do it?

Writer, Ayelet Waldman was on Oprah yesterday. She called her blog ‘bad mother’. She stopped blogging because after a lot of publicity and some strongly expressed opinions her site became too consuming. She wrote in an article for a newspaper, how she simply loves her husband more than her children and her blog became a venting wall for women everywhere. SAHM’s couldn’t deal with her public perspective on the private issue, and even those who agreed with her stance told her so.

So, why did she blog? Who knows. To sell books, get feedback? It always starts off innocently enough, a place to vent, purge, practice observational humour, keep yourself amused and hope others find you funny, too. The reasons are as indiviualistic as the writers. In Ayelet’s case, her blog got bigger than her, and the issue became too big and distorted to defend (except on Oprah).

In it’s true form, a blog is an on-line diary. Something offered publicly with a caveat- if you don’t like what you’re reading go away. It’s meant to be one way. If a kindred spirit comments and a conversation in words begins- well, why not? It’s public and the chances of meeting like-minded people gets exponentially greater when you put yourself out there. But it’s still meant to be one way- even if there is an expectation that a comment will be attached to a post. People like to ‘talk back’.

Aye, there’s the rub. The response, like a good blues tune answers the call. Sometimes the person reading is an aquaintance, family member or friend most often it is a stranger. This is where ‘blog logic’ splinters. Are you acknowledging that you are writing publicly and that your words are fair game? Do you compromise and write an online newsletter keeping emotions in check? How far do you go with those private words in a public forum? If you’re writing for the ‘talk back’ and you’re popular on line, you can expect many comments, the most popular blog gets hundreds of comments every day.
Is popularity your goal? Or do you simply want to express.

We know that public blogs have a cost attached- the media clings to the job loss stories like a childish finger pointing exercise re-proving it’s not really a writer’s millieu, it’s too grand a scale to ‘work’, too accessible to the public to be manageable. But popular media doesn’t want creative, gifted people to have an outlet that works, especially if it threatens their income.

Surprisingly I’m off the point.

Splinters splinter. Blog logic (blogic?) now dictates there is common sense in the two blogs approach. One public, one private. Splintering is taking place more often now since what began as the innocent-‘I need to express’ now reads ‘I need to selectively express in order to not offend…’.

Our regular sites will become portals to our real sites or we’ll re-nest and take a few commenters with us. Some bloggers have started email newsletters so their truth can still be expressed without causing them grief. It’s a sad state when we have to censor a readership list but it’s becoming progressively necessary as we begin to cut away the layers that protect us and those close to us.

It’s also sad when someone whose writing you admire, leaves her blog behind because of public exposure. Shutting down her site is like cutting off a piece of her heart. Her words never wavered from the truth that came from her soul and she felt safe until she found someone in her workplace on her site at WORK.

Her two worlds collided and her safe place was blasted open, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.

Now she needs to shut down and for those of us who have loved and cherished her words, we’re left with broken hearts, and the shaken sense that the flourescents have been snapped on and we’re being sent home.

To all my blogging friends: stay safe and remember your words mean everything.