I'm a blogger and proud of it!

I finally purchased a printed copy of one year's writing, the first year of Sixtyfivewhatnow, my first blog. I anticipated purchasing more books to cover the five years the blog was running, but I chose just one year.

I wanted to see the product before investing more time and energy and resources. The book sits on my coffee table announcing its benevolent intentions. Yet, when I study it carefully, diligently, I notice many errors, multiple problems with layout, copy, photos, themes and concepts. Ouch!!!!

Yet, even with all those flaws, the book looks great. I have a book with my thoughts, my instincts, my photos. I have a memory book not just of things and single events, but how I felt, what I thought, how I encountered the world on those days.

When I talk to my friends about blogging, most of them don't understand. Blogging is not a habit most old folks like me pick up easily.  Most old folks don't want to be bothered with frustrating details such as loading and uploading photos. I remember asking for help on that very same thing. The first posts of mine had no photos at all. After many attempts, and defeats, I finally figured out the skill of uploading photos, copy and paste, and even re-post on Facebook.

This is what blogging has done for me:

1. Opened the world. My first accidental connection was with a photographer/journalist in Australia who became a most interesting companion through the world of blogging. As of my last post, sixtyfivewhatnow had 890+followers world-wide thanks to the nod from Blogger when they nominated it as "Blog of Note".

2. Re-connected me with my hometown, with Italy, with natives and expatriates, with recipes and sites and events I had forgotten about.

3. Introduced me to experts in design, composition, food, style, politics, news...

4. Helped me find my own voice, more open and more complex than the one I had been for the last sixty five years.

5. Introduced me to poetry writing, story writing, personal writing. Until blogging came along, I had no confidence in my abilities to express my thoughts. After the first foray, I began new endeavors with a memoir blog, a language acquisition blog, a food blog, a hodgepodge blog-which is this one, and one just to capture the memories of my son who died suddenly a year and a half ago.

To say that blogging has changed my life is a bit of a hyperbole. It has given my life new meaning.



How has blogging changed your life?

Publishing.

Nobody can do the work of birthing for you. The labor is painful and necessary, scary and exhausting. But, it has to be done. Your first one will take forever and cause you to wander how was it that you didn't die. The second, and third, easier.

By the fourth, you are an expert. You  tell people, it's a piece of cake.

You see people with few skills do it with ease, and you wonder what is about the task that frightens you so.  How difficult could it be?

A neighbor of mine has published four books already. And he did it with a few dollars, and a good friend who arranged the hand-printing and hand binding for him.
Another has collected editors and illustrators on her own, and managed to get the books on e-book and on Amazon.

I chose blogging. No up-front fees or monthly expenses. I could try out my stories, and get feedback. For me, publishing/sharing this way is a no-brainer. It feels natural, sympathetic. I can do it without leaving the comforts of home. With no hurry. My readers, however, do not offer much criticism. They act like visitors at a museum. They nod; they praise; they congratulate. I am encouraged; but it could all be false praise, the way we encourage children's work and put it up on the refrigerator.  If teachers and critics didn't ask for changes and elaborations, our work would be very much like the early drawings our mothers put up on the refrigerator.

In real publishing-unlike the self-publishing, there are many steps, many critical eyes that will read your work before any work is performed to put it in the hands of readers.  These critical eyes will scour every aspect of the work, from the arc of the story, to the market value after it is out there.  Editors who might be assigned to help you get the work even more polished than it is already, are highly trained and will only take up work that fits their aesthetic judgement, and has potential to make the company some good money.  They will reject Ernest Hemingway as well as you if they do not see real dollar signs at the end of the preparation work they all do.

Now, I'm not ready for real publishing. I'm not ready for self/publishing. I'm taking baby steps, knowing they are beginning steps. I'm not in a hurry. Working here, at this keyboard, every day, in the early hours when only my cat is awake, and a few birds keep her occupied, I hear sounds from deep inside, gurgles of long-forgotten hurts and joys. My soul wants to meditate on these sounds right now.  

We all have to nurture our souls. Some of us paint; some create music; some read the work of others. We try to find that voice that is deep within each of  us,  the stuff that keeps us wondering, dreaming, engaged. Detached and quiet, we let truths surface and visit now and then. We hope and long to understand, to see the arc of our lives and the colors of our dreams.

On days like today, I wonder how we created all the concepts that have become our truths: love, honor, duty, obligations, god, heaven, hell, paradise, country, liberty, family, motherhood, fatherhood, ecology...