Blogging woes. Songwriting v. Blogwriting.

This whole blog started as a writing exercise, a promise to myself that I would write daily. Writing prose is easier than writing lyrics, at least it is for me, and blogs are a special form of writing. They are visible to all, but generally recognized as a lesser form of the genre. At least it has been until recently, when bloggers lately are viewed similarly to columnists of yore.

It amazes me how many readers I have, and it amuses me how most of them nowadays know me more for blogging than for singing. It also makes me incredibly aware of what I write about, to the point that I second guess myself constantly.

Sometimes when I know I need to blog, but I'm having writers-block or just feeling uninspired, I will write about what's on my mind. Sometimes that stuff is personal, so I don't go into ALL the details ... partly because I know that people I don't know are reading .. and partly because people I DO know are reading.

For example, I've been worried about Monday's Christmas-Present Blog for the past two days. First, I'm worried that I upset my own parents by making it look like they deprived me at Christmas time (Mom said last night that I have "selective memory." I say she's the one with a family history of Alzheimer's, and I bought that Nintendo with my own money.) Second, it's bugging me that Friend-with-a-Truck's family will think I'm nuts, although that's clear enough if they read my blogs with any regularity.

It's easy to hide behind a song. Songs can be fiction, and a lot of mine aren't even about me. But the audience chooses their own interpretation and relate it to their own lives. I love that about music. Most people think "Future Mr. Used-to-Be" is about my life. I can tell you right now that it was inspired by a laaaaaaaame guy that my Best-Friend-from-First-Grade dated a few years ago. You may or not believe me, and that's okay.

When you're blogging, it's harder to hide. Now, obviously, I don't WANT to hide, or I wouldn't be writing a public blog. It's just that there are some parts of my life I don't want to advertise, and there are some friends of mine who don't need funny stories about them splashed across my public Facebook page. So they have monikers, like Friend-who-Cooks-Pancakes or Friend-with-a-Truck or Best-Friend-from-First-Grade. And I'm sorry if you wish I'd use their real names; I'm not going to, for their sake, not for mine. I talk too much as it is.

Anyway, the balance of all this blogging-real-life-stuff has just been on my mind. Maybe it's time to get introverted and start writing songs again. It's been a while.

1 comments

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