So Write Something

I have my friend M. to thank for helping me realize this blog's purpose and how to approach it. M. is a colleague of my husband's, a twenty-something San Franciscan, who likes to write as well. He came to Tucson recently to visit my husband and me. When the two of them weren't working, the three of us would hang out, going for bike rides, drinking coffee, touring Tucson and doing silly things like watching the Oscars. We talked about books and film and cities and religion and relationships. Every time I went off on some incident that bugged me or tried to analyze an odd person or expound on a pet life theory of mine, M. would say, "Dude, start a blog."

I mulled that over. I did want to share my observations and experiences about life and art. But what I wanted most to share were the struggles and issues I had with writing. I'd always thought it might be helpful to others. And when I talked to my writer friends about this stuff, it always helped me. But most blogs I'd found featured sloppy, banal writing by people who hardly cared about whether they were saying anything substantive.

I said to M., "But blogs are so sloppy, so first-person, and all people talk about is their kids' baby poop. Who wants to read that?"

"Yeah, but make it whatever you want. You've gotta share this stuff with someone."

"But nobody will care."

"Just put it out there, people will find it."

"But what if it sucks?"

"That part doesn't matter. You're a writer, so ... write something."

This led to a days-long discussion/argument about the merits of blogging. In the end I told him okay, yes, I'd start one, one that I'd actually set up awhile ago but never launched publicly. I'd go back to it and revive it. He was glad. "Just do it for awhile until you get tired of it," he said. How could I start something publicly and then abandon it? I thought that was very cavalier, very twenty-something of him to say.

Days after M. left, I made a good-faith effort. I went back to that blog about writing I'd started in fall of 2007. It seemed funny to me now. It was to be penned by an everywoman persona (so I didn't have to use my real name) who would speak for all women writers. It had wispy tributes to Henry James and Jane Austen and inspiration for all struggling writers. I had surfed around for hours picking up public stock art and photos -- and it still wasn't quite right. I finally saw it all as ambitious nonsense.

So I switched my focus to Tucson, where I live in winter. That was easy, it would just be observations about the city and the weather and the desert. I told M. about it. He was glad. But then a week later, I was carefully choosing colors and fonts and creating an archive of several entries detailing the story of my husband's and my settling in Tucson. After awhile, I was torn, thinking it should first be about that story of coming to Tucson, but then maybe about the city itself (more educational, with statistics), then thinking no, it should be poetic, like the dreamy romantic images that I actually lived through. In frustration, I abandoned it altogether. I didn't have the time, I couldn't regularly update it, and I wasn't a good enough writer to ever truly capture the beauty and spirit of Tucson.

A week after that, M. IMed me: "How's the blog?" I told him I'd written some of it but then got worried it wasn't good enough and started editing it, and then went back and did it over again and then realized it wouldn't be as good as I could dream of it being and dropped it.

White blank space hung on his end.

Then we chatted about other things. But that blank white space in the chat window bothered me. He might not have answered because he was distracted or didn't know what to say or didn't agree with me, but his response was silence and M. always has an opinion about everything. I haven't asked him, but I suspect he was disappointed in me.

That silence stayed with me another couple of weeks, through a weeklong visit with friends from Seattle, through working on two applications for writing contests, through a short story, and through reading Eat, Pray, Love. But it was Elizabeth Gilbert's website that pushed me into action. Her words helped me see that M. was right. I had stuff to say, I didn't have to say it perfectly, to create the best blog about writing in the world, I was just obligated to share it in the first place -- however it might turn out. So here goes...