In my development of this blog, I’m working through uncovering what theme and tone I should maintain, what angle I should play, and what sort of rhythm and routine this blog’s content should contain. I have hundreds of different options, really, and am having trouble streamlining my essays and notions into something consistent. I’m delving into all my writings and trying to pick out a singular voice or angle to really focus on and develop in the life of this new blog and then I realized… Holy crap, I write a LOT.
The more I kept looking, I realized that only about 20% of what I write actually makes it to my main blog [or to my Facebook notes feed or whatever.] Why is that exactly? Alright, well I have separate journals lying around for various topics. I have an Artist’s Way journal to document my progress while I’m doing the course and a Affirmations, Aspirations, and Beliefs journal that I keep with Greg so we can compare and discuss what we personally believe and want for our lives together and have a reference book for Chloe when she asks. I have my New Recovery 2008 journal that charts my moods since starting new medication a couple months ago and discusses my mentality on a daily basis so I can keep track of my overall progress and what areas I need to work on, where my therapy is, etc. I have my Dreams and Tarot Readings book to keep track of what’s going on in my subconscious and track my life in relation to what my spirits are telling me. I have a very small Food Diary that I break out when I need to start holding myself accountable for my lack of discipline with food that also tracks how much exercise I’m getting and whether or not I’m losing weight healthily. I also have a journal that my mentor and friend gave me when I was pregnant to write family stories and my memories to one day give to my children called Reflections from a Mother’s Heart (Or something prefabbed and sappy like that) and is filled with prompts and questions Chloe may one day ask. And, of course, while I was pregnant, I kept a pregnancy journal/scrapbook that’s tucked away with Chloe’s baby book now.
Holy crap. I must be manic, right? The thing is, I’ve always kept a handful of journals as personal reference, almost like I’m doing research and documenting my life in specific files. I’m not regimented to them on a daily basis, but I always check in with them periodically and keep them up for years.
And then there are the blogs. Ohhh, the blogs. Since 2005, I’ve had my Main Blog that I’ve used from everything to a recovery tool to a message board to a journal to validation for my thoughts. This is what I’ve moved over to here in hopes to take my daily writing in a new direction. However, this doesn’t mean that this is my only blog. I also keep a syndication of my blog at Skirt! and now at Myrtle Beach Moms so I can build in my networking and reader base, but that doesn’t really count since it’s the same content as here. I’ve kept my God Blog for about three months now and am finding it to be the best way for me to pray as I work best putting my thoughts on paper instead of trying to organize an impromptu speech to The Maker in my head in between my tendency to get distracted. (I pray like I leave voice messages: “Uh, hey, God. It’s Liz. So, I wanted to thank you so much for not letting that cop pull me over and thanks also for keeping an eye on me and my little family and um. Thanks for you know, life, and love and um… the world and everything you’ve created. Which is a lot. But you knew that. Anyway, um. Please keep an eye on Sudan these days and other areas that are hurting more than I’ve had to know and those stupid people who are out there spewing hate that I want to punch sometimes… Oh! And thanks for Obama! And sunshine! Um, I’ll talk to you later. By-amen!”) And I started another secret blog a few years ago where I write erotica and get feedback for that from other writers in that genre (or creepy guys perusing “safe” porn sites while at work.) And then there’s my other other secret blog (the “Once…” blog) where I write stories from my life as a means of flushing them out and collecting them for future use in novels or memoirs or short stories or campfires or whatever. And then of course, there’s my FitDay.com journal that tallies calories consumed and burned and lets me track my fitness and health to correlate with my tangible journal on the same thing if I don’t feel like putting pen to paper and need a calculator to magically know the calorie content of a Subway Chicken Parm.
These blogs don’t even count the few blogs that I read and comment on and the message board I’ve been a member of since 2002 and the other various forums where I’m a contributor for networking/exposure’s sake. And they don’t include the job I have with a local food syndicate, writing restaurant critiques and book reviews or the other freelance gig I recently landed doing about the same thing and compiling info on local festivities.
Ah, I’m beginning to think I have a problem.
Until I started thinking about it recently, I kinda just assumed I wrote for validation or for someone to notice me, like when I started keeping a diary in first grade because it was popular and the diary looked cool. Or when I wrote while I was in the mental hospital because I hoped to turn it into essays or a memoir one day. With all this mounting, secreted evidence to suggest otherwise, it seems that maybe I’ve actually been doing it for myself all along.
How is it that something as simple as organizing 26 memorized symbols can be such an imperative, integral part of my daily life, like breathing or eating? It’s not even so much as a passion as something I physically have to do. There have been so many nights where I’ve had to get out of bed at 1 or 3 a.m., wrap myself in a robe and get something into text, that I think I may have a real compulsion issue here. The thought that there are people who don’t write anything other than grocery lists escapes me, really, and yet I’m the polar opposite of this, always scribbling on a list or conjuring ideas for some other blathering in some other form. Maybe I have a little “crazy artist” in me after all.
I am, however, opting not to medicate or therapize this out of my system… Honestly? I think I like it.
Who's said what now?