As of today, I now have my Typepad blog, which I hadn't updated since March, set to feed up to my Notes in my Facebook.
Reading the past blogs, I realize so much in my life has changed and not been reflected in any blog-space. I had written a few blogs on my Myspace about breaking up with Bill but there was a gap period when I wasn't blogging anywhere. So I haven't written anything about the changes in my musical goals, for example, the breakup of the band, how that affected what I am doing musically, and where I am going with that... of course that could be because I was very confused about that for a long time...
The blog-space changes the material. Example: when I was blogging on Typepad, I was experimenting and ended up with mostly "journalling" type pieces, chatty little notes about happenings, a bit of background about song-writing with La-la, and a recipe. Hey, the recipes can go on BakeSpace now. When I started on Typepad I was aware I had no readers. My definition of what I was writing was vague and very open. I liked the ability to include photos inside the text and that affected my approach. It got me to write mostly experientially - but event-focused... things I could accompany with pics.
I am aware there is somewhat of a community for Typepad, but am not tied into it. Myspace was more my social networking place when I first started "Typepadding".
On Myspace I blogged rarely, mostly using the blog-space for a personal essay or two, occasional life catch-ups for my friends, and a place to put cool quiz results that I wanted to keep. I also had blogged some about the band on the band Myspace. I think this is because the Myspace blog-space wasn't that easy to use. It felt at once isolated from the profile, yet tied to it. The best Myspace blogging that I was aware of was outrageous and colorful, not so much what I wanted to do.
I found the Notes on Facebook the best. It "felt" smaller and something about the smaller space encourages me. I was blogging little essays, chats about my life, quizzes from blog-things, and more.
I told Sonya in an email yesterday that I want to blog because:
I need it to help me balance out journalling and poetry/lyrics. I need a non-fiction prose outlet, writing-wise. I need an audience even if it is an imaginary audience or merely a comment from my sister Christine or another facebook member from time to time....
With Typepad alone, I didn't have that imaginary audience. A Myspace or a Facebook outlet gives me that. I was tending to get on Facebook more because I had access to it on my job, and my entire family except one sister is now on Facebook. Even though Facebook is now behind the firewall at work, I can still access some Facebook functionality on my phone and I can now feed from Typepad to Facebook for notes.
I blog because it is a space for me that sits between my personal journalling and my other outlets. It's not quite a finished work of non-fiction that I would publish to a magazine or website. It's not a lyric that may or may not turn into a song -- a finished work of art. A blog instead can be the seed of a formal essay or article that I might publish elsewhere, it might be a personal musing that I want to share with family and friends, it might be frivilous like blogthings quizzes, it might be chatty/newsy life stuff, it's a way of exploring within myself and yet with an audience ideas, experiences, thoughts that can grow bigger in time.
I like the communicative nature of the writing. I like the informality and immediacy. I admit that blogging and the Internet have chipped away at my perfectionism and sometimes this is not a good thing but ... it increases my ability to produce work. Perfectionism is now found in process not in the end result. When I focus on perfect output it hinders me from getting the writing done. When I let it flow, write more, more good stuff comes out. And some not so good stuff too.
Today I spoke up in a meeting at work, said something kind of "wrong" but yet it was "right" at the same time and felt that embarassment within myself, that self judgement of my own decision making process. I experience that each time I publish something in these small mileaus on the Internet and yet... I survive each time. And I learn to live with myself, a work in progress, always progressing, not in a straight line, but through motion, through writing, I eventually come back to the source, that small part within me that connects with Something Greater than I... and it reminds me to keep going....
