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on writing and being read
Oct. 20th, 2020 10:42 pmSo I first started writing in Livejournal in 2004, sixteen years ago. A couple of acquaintances told me about the website. My kids were small then, roughly 2 and 5. Small children take a lot of energy and time, so it's almost hard for me to believe I found the time to write. Of course, I often wrote about them, and they were pretty freaking hilarious. I also did NaNoWriMo the same year, in 2004, and that also seems virtually impossible, and yet it happened (and I hit 50K).
I worked really hard to build a community on LJ. I'd read friends of friends and comment on their entries, often eventually friending them too. I never had huge numbers of people reading, but it always felt like enough, like the right folks just came along. Some of them I'm still connected with, mostly on Facebook, and others I've lost somehow along the way.
I think the big difference between then and now was having a sense of being read and being commented on. It's the difference maybe between singing karaoke in a bar with a bunch of regulars and singing to Karaoke Revolution alone in your living room. I mean, it's singing, still, but there's a different energy to it.
Right now, I want to have a certain faith that there's someone who will read these words. However, being me, I can't just count on faith. So tonight I pointed a friend (not on DW) to my entries. On Facebook a little while ago, I poked a few people who have Dreamwidth accounts. Hey, please read me, I'm saying to folks. It feels a bit desperate. It is a bit desperate.
What I tell myself is that this is practice for something bigger: maybe short stories, or a novel, or more poems. Maybe nonfiction. Something more serious than just setting down a few of my thoughts. Writing here is something I need to do to get back into writing, and writing is something I need to do.
I can't think of a worthy metaphor for that need. It's not like air: I can and have lived without it for years. It's not love, which I think I would want to die without at least in some form. It's something less essential but without which my life is more impoverished.
If this were a telenovela, writing would be the character playing opposite me now, and I'd be saying, "Eres mi vida! Mi amor!" But in real life, other stuff gets in the way and sometimes, like a lover on a tv show, writing gets cast aside.
That's not really the metaphor I wanted.
When I was younger, like high school, I used to think I was good at writing. Now I know that I'm not, that it's a process, that it's all about being willing to work at it. There was maybe a time when I could have been very good. I think that time has passed. I'll settle for being able to do it still.
I think writing is a way to create some sort of meaning out of experience. It's that part that I want to continue to work on. I want it to be okay when I fall short. I want it to be okay if I write for myself.
But selfishly, I crave connection, and I want you to read me too.
I worked really hard to build a community on LJ. I'd read friends of friends and comment on their entries, often eventually friending them too. I never had huge numbers of people reading, but it always felt like enough, like the right folks just came along. Some of them I'm still connected with, mostly on Facebook, and others I've lost somehow along the way.
I think the big difference between then and now was having a sense of being read and being commented on. It's the difference maybe between singing karaoke in a bar with a bunch of regulars and singing to Karaoke Revolution alone in your living room. I mean, it's singing, still, but there's a different energy to it.
Right now, I want to have a certain faith that there's someone who will read these words. However, being me, I can't just count on faith. So tonight I pointed a friend (not on DW) to my entries. On Facebook a little while ago, I poked a few people who have Dreamwidth accounts. Hey, please read me, I'm saying to folks. It feels a bit desperate. It is a bit desperate.
What I tell myself is that this is practice for something bigger: maybe short stories, or a novel, or more poems. Maybe nonfiction. Something more serious than just setting down a few of my thoughts. Writing here is something I need to do to get back into writing, and writing is something I need to do.
I can't think of a worthy metaphor for that need. It's not like air: I can and have lived without it for years. It's not love, which I think I would want to die without at least in some form. It's something less essential but without which my life is more impoverished.
If this were a telenovela, writing would be the character playing opposite me now, and I'd be saying, "Eres mi vida! Mi amor!" But in real life, other stuff gets in the way and sometimes, like a lover on a tv show, writing gets cast aside.
That's not really the metaphor I wanted.
When I was younger, like high school, I used to think I was good at writing. Now I know that I'm not, that it's a process, that it's all about being willing to work at it. There was maybe a time when I could have been very good. I think that time has passed. I'll settle for being able to do it still.
I think writing is a way to create some sort of meaning out of experience. It's that part that I want to continue to work on. I want it to be okay when I fall short. I want it to be okay if I write for myself.
But selfishly, I crave connection, and I want you to read me too.