Fork In The Road

I may start a new weblog, or I may change this one, or abandon it altogether.  I am not quite sure which.  I welcome your thoughts, in fact, they might help a lot.

Here are the factors I'm considering:

I like you, my readers.  Some of you I know in real life, some I've come to know by email, some from the occasional comments you leave.  Some of you are ghosts who I really can't imagine -- visitors who never write anything but subscribe to the blog in your aggregators or show up in the referrer logs.  Anyway, I like that you're out there, checking in on me.  I have some loyalty to you.  I don't want to let you down.

I will keep writing.  I always write, publicly or privately.  I've come to like writing publicly.  The little bit of feedback I get is so inspiring and reassuring to me. 

I'm not sure how I feel about being a character in an ongoing story.  I want the right not to tell you about some important things.  My professional life and my romantic life are fluid and changeable and private, and perhaps because of that they're off limits, although the moods and the observations from each can't help but seep into the other things I see and notice in the world.   

I am thinking about narrative and form a lot and I might want to experiment with both, in a more deliberate way.  I am not a particularly disciplined writer.  This is something I'd like to work on.  Perhaps here, in public. 

Doing that -- withholding from you a portion of what's going on in my brain in some important areas, and the more deliberate "craft" of messing around with my writing, seems different than the approach I've taken thus far with this blog.  Thus far, my best metaphor for this blog, my aspiration about it, was a mosaic, made up of little bits of light and shadow from my daily life.  I have tried not to be contrived.  There are things I don't write about, but those things I write about I try hard to write about authentically, in a way that captures moments, scenes, and real moods.  It's impossible not to have some artifice, to present my best self here, but I don't think I'm being coy or self-promoting on the blog.  The weblog drifts around with my attention and my mood, and I've tried to trust that the resulting assemblage of thoughts and moments and observations would be interesting, if not topical.

I don't know what I'm asking here.  I'm thinking out loud, really.

I might want to write longer pieces.  Maybe that's not the right kind of thing to do on a blog.  I know I'm more inclined to skim, even when it's a blogger I really trust, if something's more than three paragraphs long.  Perhaps I'll post fragments here, and assemble them elsewhere. 

I'm probably going to bow out of the "law blogger" category. Regardless of where my professional path leads me, I don't think this blog has been about law for a long, long time.  Maybe it never was.  My interest in law persists, but it's really a more simple interest than that.  I'm interested in people trying to do the right thing in life. Law is one place that plays out, but in fact everywhere you look there are people trying to figure out what the right thing is, and trying to figure out how to do it, and getting into scuffles with other people who have different ideas.  Law is just a funny, formal manifestation of that quest, with its own language and methodology and culture.  In any event, that will remain a preoccupation of mine, but I'm not sure law and the legal profession will get much particular attention on this website. 

I actually have a secret blog.  I started it some time ago.  I wrote about things I didn't feel safe sharing here, where my thoughts and stories and confessions would be Googled right back to my name and my life.  I confessed my fears to it.  I wrote about the instincts that I have that I don't like about myself.  It was a relief to be able to write some of that honestly.  But in some ways the urge to confess necessarily involves being heard.  I found that a couple of things I started to write on the secret blog ended up here, later, after I'd figured out what was bothering me, or what I wanted to say.  It is satisfying writing for an audience, even if the awareness of an audience hamstrings me a little in what I feel I can share. Since I'm the only person who can visit the secret blog it's not quite the same.

I might want to create an anonymous blog, that can't be traced to me via Google.  It is Google I worry about, rather than you, my readers. I probably shouldn't, but I think of my readers as kind and open people.  The times I have been brave here and written things that scared me I have been welcomed and reassured by your responses.  It is the permanence of Google and my reluctance to have a momentary mood or a transient doubt frozen and indexed and linked to my name as a permanent, discoverable, character flaw that concerns me.  If I am going to play around with my writing I expect some of the results will be some bad writing.  If I am going to take more risks, some of them are likely to be foolish ones.  I can't help but feel reluctant to do all of that here in public.  At the same time, the secret blog is proving uninteresting to me.

Or maybe I'll stick around here, letting this thing evolve as it has done over the past year and a half, and see what comes of it.

What are your expectations of me?  What's worth keeping about this blog as it is today, and what can be thrown away?   Obviously I know the blog is mine, and I'll do with it what I will.  But as I've learned from the secret blog, part of the magic here for me is that this feels like a gathering place for people I like.  So your opinions about what I do here, and how it feels to read this experiment, and what makes you come back, are of great interest. 

Comments

[ogged]

There are ways to stay out of Google (and other search engines).

[Nicole]

S-

Please continue to post short posts here. I'm not a long time reader, so I wasn't drawn by the law tone. I like the posts about long walks and your dog and sailing. I like that you link to other blogs that you read, including your mothers. That was great, it give me hope on getting older and growing to a very comfortable place in my own marriarge. I know it's for you to decide, but my vote is to stay.

Nicole

[hlbird]

You know the main reason I created an anonymous blog was that my skin literaly prickled with fear each time I saw my name being googled. I couldn't help but imagine my parents reading (they weren't) or some lost long rival with nefarious intent now finding out just how blue I was feeling on May 7th.

Anonymity, of course, undermines half the reason people blog, which is to be annoyingly self-promotional, but it seems a blog is such a forgiving and intimate space we need some level of protection from search engine eyes. That said, I think when I go back to blogging it will be again under my real name.

Go figure. I'm always trying to figure out the boundaries of the blog-form, and I'll be watching to see what you do. Perhaps if you go anon you could send a kind email to your readers?

[DeeCee]

I've only been reading your blog for about a week but I hope you continue to write it. As a passionate sailor I find you to be one of the few writers who can really capture why we love the sport so much. I understand why you leave out some parts of your life, but that's OK. Your blog has so many interesting themes including a few that intersect with my life. And you are such an excellent writer. Please continue to share, inspire, amuse, motivate and educate your faithful readers.

[eldopa]

I've been reading your blog for about four months, and I really love it. (I'm a fellow Yalie, by the way.) I just enjoy hearing about how you spend your day or your ruminations on various aspects of life and humanity. And you've actually inspired me to set some fitness goals, which feels great. So rest assured, your readers love your writing... so great to check in and get some daily food for thought.

[matt]

no expectations, s.

...i just appreciate the vistas you paint.

[Butch]

I have enjoyed your writings for several months and hope you continue here or in a place I can find you.

[Rene]

Enjoy your blogging. But of course, your well being is important to all us readers. Your blog space is a virtual coffee shop where we can listen in on what you are thinking and we can occasionally chime in. So I'll chime in and say don't want you to suffer "blog burnout!" Take a break from it as you need. Tinker with the format if that suites your fancy. Our reading your blog is our priviledge but in the end, it is your blog and your life! 8-)

Your blog will remain on the bookmark bar of my Safari browser. Take care and thanks for all your sharing.

[Tess]

We only know you from what you write; whatever you write is you. We have a relationship with you because we read what you write.
Very rarely does one relationship provide for all of one's emotional needs in life - we go to different people for different things. We show different sides of ourselves to different people.
Your blog shows us window glimpses of you and your life. Draw the curtains on those windows as and when you feel the need - I don't expect you'll be short of smiling faces awaiting you when you open them again :0)

[therese]

While you may think your blog is getting dull or burdensome because you can't write the things that are important or deep for privacy reasons (which I wholeheartedly applaud!), your blog continues to be interesting and relevant because it is a picture of a human life (and sometimes the things you write about are more interesting because we take so many of those things for granted in our day-to-day lives). The long walks, the interactions with your dog, the parties or outings with friends, sailing and flying adventures, glimpses of life in Maine, and all of the other little stories you tell which give those of us with insanely busy lives a glimpse into another life. Not only does it provide a vicarious sense of calm but the reminder that there are other options if one wants to make a change. When I have a minute in my busy NYC life, I sleep, read or sit and listen to music. If it happens once a week, that’s a lot. The thought of using that precious little time to blog (which I consider from time to time) is overwhelming -- so I am amazed that you're willing to spend the time recounting the details of your life to virtual strangers; but grateful all the same. However, if this particular forum ceases to be useful for you, I'd stop -- because ultimately you're doing it for yourself. While your readers to benefit in some way, you owe us nothing.

[ms]

There have been times when reading your blog has been a real highlight of my day, a mood-saver, a chance to think and reflect. Your writing is terrific, whether you're writing about a particular event, and doing so with a lot of narrative flair, or jotting down incidental thoughts or pensive reflections. And I love the fact that these things are all put into the mix together. So for me, I come back for both the substance of your blog and the writing itself. There *has* to be some crafting/shaping/artifice/whatever you want to call it. And any readers who *expect* or *demand* you reveal all about your personal life are kind of missing the point, in my opinion. Bottom line, my vote is for you to experiment here and see how it goes. :)