Friday, October 29, 2010

Food for Thought

I sometimes wonder if non-writers find it difficult having a writer in his/her life.

I mean, for one, is it annoying or terrifying or exhilarating to wonder if/when you might appear in, say, a blog entry or a story?

When Mom and I were on the cruise, there were a couple of times I said to her, "You so know I'm going to blog about this, don't you?"

And she would respond, "Yes. But please don't mention that I [redacted], OK?"

OK.

I try to be conscientious of how other people might feel about their lives being broadcast for the interwebz to read. At least, on the blog, I do. And when writing stories (I do write them, you know, I just don't show them to anyone...yet), while you may recognize yourself, I do my utmost best to protect identities and spare you embarrassment.

But seriously, Folks. Y'all are way too interesting not to write about or at least mention occasionally.

However, there's another thing I wonder. And, you know, maybe this is just me that does this so keep that in mind.

Sometimes, particularly when I can't muster up the courage to say things aloud, I'll write them down in a letter or an e-mail. A short explanation becomes a 3-page missive in a blink and that's, I believe, namely because I do write a lot and seem to forget not everyone cares to read my diarrhea of the verbiage kind.

There are times when even I, the author, cringe in the realization of an over-share moment. And I wonder if this is annoying to other people as seeing themselves in what I write for everyone else?

I have a twitter account. I don't use it. Because I don't have anything to say in 140 characters or less.

Maybe I ought to start using it as a writing exercise. Gooch used to tell me, "Eliminate all unnecessary words." Perhaps if I could learn to eliminate unnecessary words, I could learn to say what I needed and wanted to say in 140 characters or less.

Hmmm. Which then has me wondering if I can say everything that needs to be said in 140 characters or less, what's the point of writing anything at all?

Writing. Gift and curse.

4 comments:

Teresa said...

Don't you dare cut down what you have to say to 140 words or less. I appreciate every letter, ever word and every paragraph. As for reading about myself in anyone's writing, it doesn't bother me a bit.

Franklin Taggart said...

I don't care how many characters...just keep it interesting :)

Franklin Taggart said...

Joke: How can you tell when a blogger runs out of ideas? They start blogging about blogging :)

Have you noticed how many blogs there are about blogging?

Just Jane said...

@teresa: Thank you :).

@Franny: There are an awful lot of niche blogs, that's for certain. I don't know how anyone sticks to just one topic all the time. I'm way too random for that nonsense.