As some of my twitter friends will know, I’m writing a novel. My tongue is slightly in cheek as I state that, since my writing is more like collecting. I rarely have more than 20 minutes in a row to realize I can go write, get to my computer, have a sudden spark of brilliance, type it fast, wish I could edit, and hit save before running back to active duty. Most of my writing is tweet-like in nature, whether or not I post it to twitter.
But one thing I can do in a short burst is blog. I find essence in writing about ideas, exploring and analysing themes outside the story of my shoestring novel. When I get a chance to write, I look back over my snapshot thoughts for inspiration, and often I get a page or two cranked out in my 20 minute opportunity.
I spend blog time exploring themes that appear in my fiction. So far, the themes I’ve blogged appear in my life and experience as well my story, but as I continue down this writing path, I find it difficult and awkward to qualify what is me and what is stretched and kneaded by the context of my first-person fiction. There are times when I’m not even sure where the line is. As a writer I’m fascinated with, and inspired by, the swirl of the universal when I hit my stride.
Aren’t we all a bit of a fiction, here online? We can be our best spirits if we choose, because we have the time to carefully consider what we say and think. We can find our points of connection anonymously and reach out with little fear, since rejection in this forum stings less than in real life. Nothing I blog could ever capture the fullness of my life and experience – it’s altered even by the writing. If I play with it, turn the kaleidoscope slightly or amplify the volume a little, am I betraying the trust of my readers?
I need to know, because I’m reaching a point with my blogging where I’d like to explore more, play a bit with the lines of thinking from a more story-oriented context. I feel that I can only write what is in me to write. Still, it’s possible that some of what I write is outside my immediate, right-now experience, even when written in the present tense, first person. I might be internalizing someone’s story as I imagine it from my own context. I might be exploring a realization I had years ago to relive it for my work. It all sounds like me, because it all is me, but it’s also more than right-now me. Does that bother you?
I guess I’m asking permission to blog in a free-flow between “reality” and “fiction,” though both terms remain relative. Do I need permission? No, but I’d feel freer if I had it.
