Turning personal experiences into posts
This post is born after an email exchange with Imperfect. I added their post Ask for Clarification on my Junited link list, without giving any clarifications as to why I liked the post.
So when I got their email asking for clarification if I had any thoughts on their post, I replied with all the reasons why it resonated and told them a cute family story, and then they asked me:
Have you considered turning those personal experiences or others into a post for people beyond us to enjoy reading?
Poignant.
I realized one of the reasons I liked their post was because it was personal. Just like I loved Danny's essay, and Andrew's farm log, and Joel's drafts, and NoOne's love for salads. Big or small, it's all personal. I even linked to two motivational posts about blogging, one by Robert and one by Mike (Shellsharks), where they push the reader to share more freely, because this is what I aspire to do too.
My weeknotes are a shallow attempt at opening up a little. What I saw, read, ate, did. It makes me feel like I am sharing, while keeping my inner thoughts and ideas deep inside. I don't want to disagree with others, I don't want to open up to strangers, I don't want to be vulnerable. I justify by saying I have nothing interesting to say, I am not cool enough, I have the most boring life. I love reading other's personal experiences, I just don't share mine.
Here is an extract of what I wrote to Imperfect via email:
I feel unsure sometimes about what to write. Do I even have anything interesting to say? Does anyone care about my thoughts? Why should I be broadcasting? I’m no influencer. I feel an outsider to the blogosphere and the small web. From the very beginning I noticed there’s a small group of people that are more prominent in this tiny little world and that have a lot to say about a lot of things. Writing via email feels safe and shielded.
To which they replied (an excerpt):
I figure sharing enough of what you love as widely as possible increases the odds of finding those that vibe with it. I wonder how much that could make feeling like an outsider a thing of the past over time. (...) Your mundane can be someone else's extraordinary.
Thank you SO much for this. 💜
I'm not sure I'll keep writing the Weeknotes. I have bought a 5 Year Journal and I've been writing on it daily since the beginning of the year. It's doing what I hoped the weeknotes would do -- record my daily life, what I ate, saw, read, did --, but with fountain pen and paper, really enjoyable. I wake up, make a large cup of café con leche, and write my tiny paragraph on the previous day.
What I will do instead, is start writing more freely. About my terrible insomnia, my gardening failures, my photos, my piano progress. Instead of answering other's posts in my own head, I'll type my thoughts. I should probably document my photography workflow. And maybe a tutorial on how to setup Sierra Chart for trading. And I should definitely share my favourite no-knead bread recipe.
Time for me to get comfortable on my own little blog.
My 5YJ entry for yesterday
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