sunshine and storms

Today, Jordan Summers is discussing her public blogging persona on Romancing the Blog, and the timing couldn’t be more apt. I was just having this same conversation on one of my loops, and am actually working on a longer rumination on the topic for sometime next week, so I’ll try to steer clear of the issues I’m covering then on this post.

Blogging is very public. I know that it feels as if you are just sharing with your chums, because it’s your buddies and critique partners and long-lost friends from high school who are commenting here, but everyone else — your enemies, your editors, your prospective editors — can peek in, too. So you do need to be careful with what you say.

I try to stay upbeat on my blog, but I thinkthat it may give rise to the idea that I don’t experience the very same problems that I often blog about. A few weeks ago, I was asking an associate for advice, and, having read my blog, she said, “Physician, heal thyself.”

Ha. Ha ha ha.

Another time, after one of the WGAGB entries, my editor started dropping phrases like “Kill Your Darlings” into our editorial conversations and seemed surprised that I didn’t immediately recognize that useless bit of text in my manuscript for the “darling” it was. (And then I did, and sheepishly cut it out of the manuscript. I can be taught.)

Look, just because I said it was a good idea doesn’t mean it’s any easier for me to do! In fact, the reason I’m often inspired to blog about certain craft issues is because they are things that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about… because I’m dealing with them myself. And, having thought about them a great deal, I’ve decided to present the opinions I’ve formed about the topic. I like it, because the discussions that follow such postings usually teach me an enormous amount about the topic.

Sometimes, like last night, I go to a writing workshop that makes me think about my story in a whole new light. Sometimes, I think I have a perfect handle on things, and my associates agree, and then when I sit down to do it, I realize that it’s not going to work out the way we all thought. And then I have to back up, take it apart, figure out what’s broken and how intensive the repairs will be.

In general, yes, I think I know what I’m doing with this writing thing. But a lot of “knowing what I’m doing” involves recognizing the boundaries between what I know and am doing, what I know I should be doing but am not, what I’m doing that I know I shouldn’t, and what I don’t know and had better find out. You know, that whole Socratic thing about knowing what you don’t know being a very valuable piece of knowledge.