The art of sharing

Part of the reason I've had such a hard time committing to this blog is that I'm deeply conflicted about how much and what to share. There are obvious no-nos regarding sharing personal stuff online--no rants about work, no going off about people and naming names, etc. And although I've encountered insane amounts of TMI-level blogging, there is a limit on how personal you want to get unless you want to make your mark as a drama queen. And by the time you get to be my age you're supposed to have your act together, at least publicly.

I guess I need to ask myself why I'm blogging in the first place. A lot of it is simply to write. Writing comes easily to me, but that does not mean that it is easy. Writing with the intention to publish is a lot different from writing privately. I still keep a paper journal that I write in every morning, where I don't worry about grammar, sentence structure, spelling, or even being coherent (I do pay attention to penmanship though!). Nevertheless, writing well is important to me, and as the amount of writing I do for work has declined, I have had no forum in which to practice the discipline of it. And when I've been away for a while, it really does feel like work! I can feel my brain straining to stay focused, to create order out of the chaos of my thoughts, to critically examine the output. It is hard, but it is satisfying! And that is how I know that it is of value to me.

Is it my intention to create a space where discussion happens? That is another aspect to consider when choosing what to publish. If I want to incite discussion via comments, I need to consider not only what to talk about but also how to present it in such a way that it elicits a response. It also brings up the question of how to develop a readership, aka "putting myself out there," about which I am very ambivalent. I'm generally not all that comfortable calling too much attention to myself.

Which brings me back to the question of what to share. Some of what's been happening with me lately either  falls into the category of non-shareable no-nos as mentioned above, or is more of the same family drama I've written about here before. Or, it's stuff I could share but am not ready to. Does all this mean that I'm out of options? Do I limit myself to publishing favorite recipes or what I had for dinner? No, I don't think so. I think that another part of the discipline of writing, or perhaps specifically of blogging, is figuring out what you want to talk about and how to say it in such a way that it is engaging without crossing the line into TMI or randomness, and also without being too timid to the point of not communicating enough to spark a discussion. That's where I've been having trouble, I think. I'm generally too timid, and instead of stepping up to the challenge of how to write about subjects that feel personal but that I want to put out there, I've refused the challenge altogether.

So, am I ready to take it on now? I think I'd like to. Still, it feels a little like standing at the edge of a diving board but being afraid to jump. Or in this case, to hit "Publish."