1. Confess!
Why are you writing this? What drove you to do this? What is the driving force behind your words?
2. Don't think about what you're going to accomplish. Think about the journey. How do you want the journey to be?
3. Hide from the people you know. I know I will.
I've started two serious blogs until now. By serious I mean I wrote at least 150 entries. I held on to them. I chose my words carefully and I painted everything pretty.
I killed blog #1 after the end of a long term relationship. In between my other interests were snippets of the life I used to have. A life that was dragging along. A life that was not happy. A person that I was not proud of. Myself. When the relationship died, the blog was put to sleep. Not deleted, but hidden away from the public eye. It had a few readers, but only one that I knew personally. I had only shared it with one friend, someone I knew would never judge. Someone who had her own baggage and I knew she wouldn't weigh in on mine. That was a good decision that I made. Keeping it hidden from the eyes of the people I know.
Blog #2 was started after a major life change. I got married to a wonderful man, and moved to another country. I wanted to use the blog as a means of keeping in touch and reporting about my new life. But I can't do it in all honesty. I know people back home who are judgemental. I don't like being scolded or laughed at. Nobody does. It's hard to show people that you're this multifaceted person, when they've only interacted with you in one capacity. It's incomprehensible to some people that a lapsed academic can like crafting, that a teacher has a twisted sense of humor, that someone who devoured great classics likes to read self-help books too. Once you're in a frame, you're in there for better or for worse. Your interests change faster than other people's opinion of you changes.
Then there's my mother-in-law. She might mean well, but she and I come from two different worlds. I'm constantly worried that what I say might offend her. So I hide my thought and lose them in the process.
So here I am, at serious blog #3, that I intend to keep for myself and for strangers. I will even hide it from my husband. I need this for myself.
4. Do what you think is right.
Don't ask other people questions you don't want to know the answer to. Ask yourself: does this feel right? If it does, go for it. Put fingers to keyboard and write.
That's all there is.
