One for the road

A former co-worker of mine has ended his own blog, one year to the date after he started it. It was always his goal to get back into the writing process, and then get a graduate degree in creative writing. He’s gone through the applications process and will likely soon be heading off to school somewhere.

His blog was pretty popular among a small group of friends and acquaintances, myself included. It was because of his encouragement that I began my own blog, much for the same reasons -- to encourage me to write more. The new journalism job will probably make creative writing harder, rather than easier, because I’ll be writing all the time, and not in a creative writing format (although it certainly requires some creativity to keep it fresh). But I’ll make the effort regardless, because creative writing is my goal.

So this blog will continue, even if his will not. I hope to post less lengthy thoughts and generate more poems or show more photographs in the future.

He’ll be removing his blog from cyberspace shortly, and I wanted to respond to some questions he put in his second-to-last post regarding the nature of his blog and blogging in general.

Some answers for you, CrazyJohn:

How did your persona-as-commentator differ from the "real you"? Did you feel like you were more honest when writing here than your normally are in your life?

I think and write in stream-of-consciousness. But until people get to know you, you have to tamp that down, because they think you’re crazy. So when I first meet people, I’ll often guard how much I let slip out. But in blogworld, you can say what you like, in any old artistic or ridiculous fashion, and as long as it is interesting and different, they tend to appreciate it. I have been more myself writing and commenting on blogs than I have been in a long time.

What should we do with our time now that we can't read/write here anymore?

We should pursue our dreams, as you are.

Any other blogs/websites we should transfer our attention to?

If you live in Raleigh, you ought to catch a cable access show of Monkeytime TV once in a while. I watched it years ago when I lived there, and even ran into the offbeat creator of it outside a bar one night. He came out with a friend, and looked askance at me because I was staring at him. And I said: “Hey, you’re Monkeytime TV,” and he was shocked, because he thought only his friends watched it. He has a Web page, which I have a link to on the right.

In the age of disintegrating communities, did this blog-space feel like a community?

More so than anything I’ve felt in a long time. I shall miss it, but I think we all can get trapped in places and need to be given the proverbial kick in the behind to get moving on again. I totally respect your end-of-blogdom.

Any remaining secrets you want to reveal before the opportunity has past?

I tell everyone I’m a writer, but writing is torturous for me. I want to do it, but my mind refuses. Only the smallest poems or shortest articles come out fluidly, the rest are a chophouse process. My blogs, written in one long breath, are an exception. So instead of me trying to control them, to mash them into a square circle or whatnot, I just let them out as they come and run with it. Perhaps, doing so will help me figure out some control in the future.

If there's fellow-commentators you haven't met in person, did their personalities come through in their writing?

Tough to say. Most of us act differently in different situations regardless; if we’re asked to speak publicly we may come off differently than in a gathering of friends. The blogosphere provides a whole new forum for people to express themselves, and so they may have for the first time in their lives opened up, or they may have been bugged out by the whole throw-some-words-onto-the-net process, or they may have found themselves watching what they say so as not to offend, or otherwise. In the blogosphere, people cannot learn much about you that you don’t want them to know, so in many ways, it’s a less than honest appraisal. But who cares? I liked the community of CrazyJohn, and I shall miss it.

What will you miss the most about this blog community?

The author’s commentary of the life outside his window.

Do you regret saying anything in one of your comments?

I regret not saying things when I couldn’t make up my mind how to respond. My brain is still processing how to answer your question to describe ourselves (as commentators to your blog) so you can feature us on a separate page. What should I say? How should I say it? Which part of me shall represent me the best? I never did come up with an answer for that.

Does participating in a blog-community make us geeks?

Only participating in it would. Unless you’re geographically isolated (or somehow trapped inside your house), you ought to have some interaction with the breathing world for balance. If a solar flare knocked out all our communications tomorrow, who among us could adjust to the real world while we awaited for things to be replaced? Could you pick up a Frisbee and toss it? Could you make friends with your neighbors? Could you find work that doesn’t involve technology? Would we all end up in the library or bar?

Coming to the post-blog party on Saturday, January 20, here in Chapel Hill?

It was a nice time. My second blog party in a year, only this time I had something to say to the other attendees. It was a strange experience, meeting people you’ve only “met” through reading their observations on someone else’s blog.

That's all. Any other messages you want to pass on to all of us?

Not today.