On Blogging

I've been giving some thought as to the purpose of blogging lately. I do it because I enjoy bringing up societal quirks, discussing politics, and posting silly pictures of Bill Cosby. I also like to write, and blogging is a quick exercise to keep my fingers limber.

However, I don't get deeply personal in my blog. I don't talk about my employer or reveal personal things about my family and myself. That's because I assume that everybody who matters to me will somehow stumble across my blog and there's no point in putting anything out there that will piss people off, make them hate me/want to fire me, etc. The entertainment value/catharsis of putting that stuff out in public is only a liability, as I see it.

That does translate into an admitted lack of juiciness. There are no soap opera plots percolating through this blog, no stories of sexual rampage or violence or personal insults (unless you count our president). Does that make me a little more boring? Maybe. But I don't see how it's worth it.

This attitude certainly affects the fiction I write. Many writers draw on personal experience for their plots -- my last writing teacher thought that focusing on personal experiences was essential to get to the truth of life, which he perceived to be the ultimate goal of writing. Indeed, many writers (notoriously Philip Roth) lay it all out on the table, thinly veiling their relationships and personal experiences through proxy characters. There have been repercussions, but to them it's worth it for that extra level of familiarity, that truth.

Do I need to get more personal, to get deeper? Is it possible to write about things I don't know with that same authority as someone who's been through it? Would you believe me if I wrote about pregnancy or being raped or growing up in the ghetto, or am I doomed to never be capable of convincingly putting myself into other people's shoes? Obviously, it's harder to do that -- but I think it can be done. I also think that it NEEDS to be done -- let's face it, life as a mildly well-off guy with a woman and a dog in San Francisco is great but not always eventful or interesting. I think I need to think outside my head to create something readers will care about, something different, something compelling.

Part of the reason I don't get that personal is because, in general, I'm a fairly private person. I talk a lot, sure, but I don't really like talking about personal things or even physical contact with others. My loss? Maybe. But that's the way it is for the moment. (One could even construe this paragraph to being a breakthrough towards getting more personal through self-examination, but I'm not going to change too much anytime soon.)

In other news, did anybody see the Redskins brutalize the 49ers 52-17? It was pretty much the best day of football in about 15 years.