So boyfriend sent me this interesting article on female (right winged) bloggers. Now, right winged politics aside, I read the article and found all of their backgrounds fascinating. These are blogger who routinely get 10,000+ readers/day. I could only dream of that kind of readership.
Since I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a writer. Around the 2000 election with my AP US History teacher and I talking about how history was happening right before our eyes as we counted ballots in our mock election, I fell in love with politics. I fell in love with having an opinion.
Somewhere along the line though and I could go ahead and blame this on my first College Writing Professor in September 2001 who was the first professor to make me cry in his office when he told me I had no writing skills. It was likely then that I lost a little bit of confidence in not only my writing but also my opinions because as I found last night when my boss asked me why I support Obama over Hillary what I wanted to say, I didn’t because I worried that it wasn’t…right. It’s not just his name, though I do love how it flows off the tip of my tongue, but it’s something more. Something I can’t quite pin my finger down on. I spent so much energy in 2003-2004 trying to get John Kerry elected, recruiting volunteers on campus, rallies that i’d skip classes for, trips home to be elected as a delegate to the DNC, and so many other things. It was a whirlwind and I loved every minute of it. But that’s the thing that I forgot with opinions, it doesn’t matter why. It’s your right to have one and so what if Obama inspires me, if listening to him speak makes me want to put on my campaigning shoes and go join the movement for the greater good…so what. Thats what it does to me, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Somewhere along the line though, I don’t know when, I lost a little bit of faith in myself. Was it all those jobs I was rejected from on the hill? Was it the fact that I was in the big leagues now and everyone else seems so much more educated and opinionated than me? I don’t know, but I wish I knew how to find out. I wish I could better explain my incredible paranoia of just…sheer negative judgment from my peers.
It’s funny that they talk about women bloggers and male bloggers as being different. Well, duh. But what’s interesting is and I think about last nights episode of ANTM, women have so many more issues. Granted, men can have weight issues as well, I once dated a boy who was anorexic and though he wasn’t when we dated he still had major body issues. They stem from different sources but that doesn’t make their insecurities any less important than a woman’s insecurities about how apple bottomed jeans make her ass look.
But really, what I guess I want to know is what makes a blog unique. Clearly, I am not unique, i found this morning on my google reader at least ten entries about Project Runway, before it was about Christina Aguilera’s baby and Nicole Richie’s baby pictures. We all have the same interest, and I guess what I’ve been struggling with lately, which has put me a blah blog mode (fret not though friends, I will persevere and not fail Blog365) is how to distinguish myself as unique. How to find a voice that doesn’t sound mundane and trite and scripted. I thought once I had my own voice, but lately I feel like I’m missing something. I feel almost like I’m ….dare I say it… trying too hard.
I’m trying to think…to think of an answer to the ultimate question when it comes to blogging that I’ve found, why do you do it? I know why I used to write, to record things as they happened – emotions, feelings, events in my life…I have old LJ entries chronicled in a word document from the deleted livejournals that i did in the fall. The day i graduated high school, my horrific breakup from my high school boyfriend in spring 2001, my acceptance to college, the stressful end of senior year, my depression/bad adjustment to college in 01-02 – i don’t know if you could specifically call it depression but there was a lot of co-dependency and crying, among other bad bad emotions, followed by more bad relationships and co-dependency, followed by dream internships, making of great friends, meeting and becoming close friends with my ex which subsequently led to a year and a half of an emotional rollercoaster and ended with my move to DC and meeting and falling in love with current boyfriend.
Somewhere in there I learned to love myself, but at the same time, I became more insecure in expressing myself. I am constantly paranoid that a smaller readership than other blogs I read means that people don’t like me, that I come off as being too…self centered? Mundane? Trite? Superficial? I worry that my readers laugh at my horrid writing behind my back and scoff at my dream of someday becoming a published writer which is a dream that I share with many a bloggers. Why else would we all do this right? I worry that I don’t share enough of myself to my readers but I’m afraid to. I had a lot of drama with my LJ when it came down to some sort of twisted love triangle back in January 2002 that ended in a lot of tears, but later a great friendship. I hate drama…I mean we all have our fair share but I grew tired of it. Of the yelling, the arguing, the passive-aggressive bantering over LJ comments. I don’t want that here which is why I keep a certain level of…anonymity, and lack of personal sharing. I think, personally, I need to get over it, and just write for me and whoever reads it…reads it. If they don’t like it? They don’t need to read it….right?
But I guess, what I really want to know, what I’m curious about from you all fabulous readers is why do you blog? What are your “blogging insecurities?” Thoughts? Comments?
