Recently I heard another writer complain that she could never keep a blog because blogs "give away writing for free"--a complaint that is understandable, I suppose, if one is used to getting paid for every word. But of course that is not my problem. My problem is more the burgeoning sense that I am a bore. Really I do nothing exciting. I feed animals and people. I read unpopular books. I garden and hang laundry. I write. Occasionally I play music. My rants are rare and mostly involve grammar. I don't pick fights. I don't have a mission of instruction. I'm not a regular book reviewer. I don't publicize prurient details about my or anyone else's private life. Mornings like today I do feel that I have nothing to offer you but tedium, and I apologize for that. Apparently the life of a poet is dull, despite all Shelleyean evidence to the contrary.
7 comments:
Dear Dawn,
You are most assuredly NOT a bore! I love your blog (and in case I haven't told you before, your blog is listed on my "blogroll" -- hope that's ok). I find it--and you--refreshing and funny and inspiring. And it is unique among the writers' blogs I generally read.
I know it's each of our personal choice how often (or if) we blog, and I used to blog daily, too--I enjoy blogging immensely. I cut back because I realized not that I was giving words away for free but that I was blogging at the expense of my WIP.
Your "tedium" is hardly dull, never ever boring, and almost always quite entertaining! You may write about "nothing exciting," but never in a boring way. That said, I completely understand the questioning of how long. It is after all a personal choice, but if you stop these daily letters, this reader will miss them and be sad!
xo Julia
If you are boring, then so is Jane Austen. I hope you keep hanging laundry and telling us about it.
I vote with the the previous two opinions! I love reading your blog. It gives me comfort that life is continuing.
Count me in with the others.
You're all very kind, and now I feel like a jerk, as if I wrote this post intending to suck kindly comments from my readers, which I didn't; really I didn't. In truth I think these periodically hapless posts are one of the side-effects of trying to keep an everyday journal. I should start trying to imitate those stiff-lipped pioneer-woman diaries: "Strode through three tornadoes and a ditch of rattlers to boil water for Cousin Nel's confinement" or "John scalped by Sioux but Lord knows he had it coming to him."
I am perfectly content with the new adjective I have gained. Shelleyean. yay!
haha, great response. First a bore now a jerk? It's the blogger way.... we write then we get reaction then we write again. It's such an "organic" process (ok I hate that word but it works here). And p.s. I never ever thought you were trying to suck kindly comments. I offered freely!)
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