Writing inward, writing out

A couple of people have approached me about blogging recently. Aspiring bloggers, they wanted to know what it has been like for me, these early days of starting to blog.

People blog for vastly different reasons, of course. And in truth, I am still finding my way into my blogging identity. I have little to say to those who hope to build business or make money through a blog. But I can talk a bit from the perspective of a writer who never expected to become a blogger.

Writing requires a certain amount of solitude. There is a kind of diving inward, a sense of going deeper into one's self. Maybe not so much some of the more technical parts of the writing process, such as self-editing, but certainly the more creative parts.

I have an ambivalent relationship to this process of going inward. Sometimes it feels delicious, private, extraordinarily free of constraints which make up other parts of life. Sometimes, it feels like being lost in a cave that seems endless, and I don't know whether I should turn back or keep going, and I don't know which way is which anymore.

I have similar mixed feelings about the social part of writing, which to me includes submitting and discussing one's work, being involved in writing communities or groups, and the many ways writers and readers have dialogues with one another. On the one hand, it feels fabulously surreal to get feedback that a poem or essay resonated with someone, or that something I wrote has been accepted for publication. And I often greatly enjoy writing in a workshop or group.

But there are also times when exposure or social noise feels like something I want to hide from, and I long for private moments, just me and my pen and notebook.

Blogging, it turns out, feels for me like the best of both of these writing worlds. I am alone with writing a post for a finite, usually brief period of time, engaging in some mild self-exploration that feels neither pressured nor deep, and then I am pressing "Publish". I know when I do so that only a small number of people will be reading my words, but it's enough to feel like I'm connecting a little. And every now and then, someone will give me feedback by Comment or through message, and this feels like the most casual, comfortable interaction.

The Writer Susan leaves her manuscript-in-progress and gives a friendly wave to the nice people she sees across the lake, reminding her that she is not, in fact, alone. And now and then, someone friendly on the other side of the lake waves back.

It isn't high-brow. It isn't literary. But it's pretty cool, when it comes right down to it. (So, friends, the answer is yes, by all means, go try your blog!)