Mold Farm, Part Deux; blogging is weird

The weather’s supposed to get better tomorrow. Sure. Actually can’t take it anymore. Constant gray skies; mugginess that comes in through the AC, my lungs and my head need to be sent somewhere on vacation.

Really don’t want this to be a political blog, or give power to people who feel the need to comment on my team political blog, and then get me so angry that I break my own rule (for a change) and write about 9/11 affecting people differently in New York than it did in California. Said person then commented on my post, and said I “misinterpeted” him. Copied his comment and provided a link back to the comments. However I then became angry and, well…

I have been having an ongoing conversation with Trine on blogging; Mrs. M. (who needs a plug like a fish needs…oh wrong blog, well anyway) made this comment.

Okay now that I had that rant…Blogging is a weird thing…. However, how do you know the mommy bloggers are not really pedophiles? How do you know that? For your friends that say they hate blogs, perhaps they are jealous and afraid to show their narcissistic side?

For the two of you who don’t know Mrs. M–okay–make that five people as people who read me are rather eclectic; that first part was a joke. Trine’s a mommy and a blogger and thus belongs to a mommy blogger ring. Wow that does sound rather paedophile. It’s not. Think I have begun to know Trine well enough to know that not only would she expose it, she would write about it! Trine’s blog keeps on becoming increasingly important to my reading life. It’s as if Bridget Jones became Norwegian, added some IQ points, married, had a child, moved to Brighton, England, and frankly I find myself so immersed in it, I would feel cheated if she stopped. Unless she made it into a book or books…No, Bridget Jones isn’t an apt description, but I’m still in mold farm mental state, so…

Mrs. M is from Queens and Manhattan and lives in London. I’m not only expecting to buy the book but see the movie–and not in the very distant future.

Just over three years ago I would write for fun. Writing events and thoughts done helped me understand them. Then I had the incredible fortune of being published often, for a little newspaper that could and isn’t so little anymore. Suddenly just writing didn’t satisfy me; I needed to see my work in print. Even that lost its sheen after awhile because–well, okay, I made my editor grade my work.

I have taken writing classes where my work would be critiqued until it lost all lustre. I could anticipate who would say what before each class. I was non-linear, rambled, and every variation there of.

But I knew three things: I could nail a character; I could tell a story; and BTW, I like my writing. If I laughed I was pretty sure that other people would. Then I discovered blogging.

I began last August and did it strictly for writing practice and to see how it would look blogged. I like the Blogger look–it’s intutively right; and remained on plain Vanilla Blogger for two months after I found Blog Explosion, last November, and put it on. It was the most amazing and gratifying, work experience of my life, though I did pay to put it on BE. No time for surfing. People found me. Was totally amazed. And soon Courting paid for itself. Without going to any trouble I had found an audience.

The only problem, and it is a big one, is that I write things I could be paid to write. Know this because old friends will email me and say “you could have sold it to a literary journal.” Somehow, sadly I guess, I would rather blog.

It’s good that I was used to scathing critiques because I hadn’t seen anything like the comments I received on my political posts and team political blog. At first they hurt but then they became funny. I was a teenager through the worst days of Viet Nam; that was the only time I have ever defined myself through my politics. It’s important to me once again, but I no longer define myself through verbiage. I have done and accomplished too much, through too many arenas, to think of myself as “political,” “JAP” “liberal” “writer.”

While I use those words all the time, I’m usually making fun of myself. Want me to whine? Seinfeld whined. Grace whines on Will & Grace. I’m not big on whining but I have done my share.

Life’s too short to just make fun of other people. Blogging’s given me the timing while allowing me to remain true to my vision. I can take risks and journeys in my work and know that people will still read it. Of course, I’ a narcissist. Nobody without ego would expose so much of themselves, and think that other people will care. Or you could just be really pathological, which I’m not.

Blogging’s a wonderful world, and we’re all in the vanguard. I no longer envy abstract expressionist painters, and beat writers. We have a new language and its right here. Trine says that blogging is the first writing democracy and I thought that at first. But now I think it’s something more than a democracy. It’s a meritocracy/democracy. Somehow most people can find people that they can relate to.

Just never send me a meme.