Thursday, February 11, 2010

Fearing the pen

My life is an open book.  I'm all "Hey, here's my opinion and a detailed list of all the atrocities that have happened in my life.  What's your name?"  I write from that base of disarming honesty wrapped in humour so you actually don't know who I am.  When I started writing for the interwebbed people --this month it is 4 years on Blogger, but it was another year before than in another realm -- I didn't think about who would read these words and what impact they would have.  I was writing to amuse my friends, myself, and to prove to everyone how clever I am.  I'm clever as clever, by the way.

As I've become more well known, and by that I mean every relative and their dog has found my site, I have shied from being really super honest.  Mostly because I get worried emails from my father and others who fear I am "this close" to slipping over the edge and "how can they not worry about me when I write things like that?"  Sigh.  But also because I have realized the effect my writing can have on others in my life.  I have to think about what I am writing and how it may expose things about other people that is none of my business -- or at very least, not my story to tell. 

I can write all I want about my mother's death and how it changed me, but there were 6 other people in that room who may not appreciate when I bear my grief for the world to see.  I can write about the funny and inane things I get angry about, but The Guy may not appreciate my opening our marriage for the sake of my need to be funny.  I can write about my own insecurities, but sometimes it leaves me open to attack.

I fear what I write will not be funny enough, smart enough, deep enough.  I fear that people will not accept it and I am confused when people don't love me more than they do.  So I change my writing to be more or less based on what I think others will want to read. 

So, I write and I censor.  I search and I ponder.  I bend stories to be more amusing than they were or to be more like I wish they could have been.  I am brutally honest in one moment and completely full of bear pooh the next.  I haven't conquered fear, but I am aware of it.  For me, that is half the battle.


Thanks to Schmutzie who bared her soul and encouraged us to do the same.

4 comments:

  1. The people that matter love you a lot. Like me. Don't stop writing whatever you do.

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  2. you're allowed to share your story however you need to. The other players in those stories can share their part or not, as they see fit.

    Write, baby, write. Anonymously, to your self, boldly, for an audience, however you feel moved...but please, write.
    Much Love.
    Jen

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  3. This was brave, and beautiful. I can relate to this so much...

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