Reflection Piece on Blogging

Blogging to gain fluency, oh cool! For the first week maybe. There’s no doubt I have a passion for writing. The excitement of visiting old friends, pen and paper, was enough to ignore hurdles such as writer’s block and grammatically correct sentence structure (which I still suck at) but the initial fear of disclosure blogging would require was beyond most anxiety attacks experienced, thus far. Anonymity was not an option if I wanted to be judged and graded with all fairness involved, not to mention syllabus inclusion of warnings like “invading your own privacy”. Well, that just shot the excitement reunions typically bring; my writing had always been self-invading, therapy if you will. I desperately needed therapy, emotional release without edit or delete. 

Three weeks later, many hurdles cleared and many leaving scars, progress has been made; vocabulary bank expanded, awareness of audience upon the battlefront, and twenty-five (25) therapy sessions completed. Although therapy is considered as healing, regardless of which emotion was flowing during the hour (or 300 words), the victories fed the conquering while lessons from defeat fed the drive to persevere. I yearned for acceptance throughout this assignment and found comfort knowing there were eyes reading, I actually had an audience. Minimal comments were made throughout, source of discouragement on occasion; however the acceptance came from increasing “hits” on certain posts and from various areas, globally. They shared my fear; disclosure. Forty-nine “hits” in one day, now that is honor, one that often kept me from giving up.

Blogging has become a playground or a lab testing facility for me, as a writer. Tracking followers, disclosed or undisclosed, of writing styles and content is an asset I hope to define my strengths and weaknesses, those known and unknown. I suspect I’m not alone in this fear; Anne Lamott assures the journey of writing is far greater than a prize. This journey is far from over as it has been one of the best therapy sessions I have experienced, thus far. The desire to share my writings in hopes the reader could benefit are still strong and growing but expansion has also been made in that as well; large scale or small scale makes no difference now…if a smile, tear, or giggle produces from reading any of my writings, then I have succeeded, published or not.