My friend mr. schprock asked a valid question on his blog....Who is your Muse? First time through, I misread the post and thought he said Which Muse Are You? I could only remember two or three off hand, so since I haven't been sleeping much this week, I dusted off my Greek Mythology and read up on all nine of the Greek muses...Terpsichore, Calliope, Clio and the crew. Then I scoured Google and found this great quiz that says I am Euterpe - muse of music and hapy when all is in harmony. Accurate, but geesh, couldn't I get a better name?
After a second reading, I realized he wasn't asking which muse *I* was, but who inspires my writing. DOH! Guess it's all that sleeplessness clouding my concnetration. Which reminds me - update: still no word from him. The social circle in which we first met reconvenes again tomorrow night and I'm entertaining the idea of not going. Part of me is thrilled to see him and part of me scared to death to see if he will ignore me in person as he has all week, and avoidance will allow me to continue to dwell in denial a bit longer, grasping to that hope that perhaps he still cares, just a little bit. And right now, that's all I have going for me.
Also, as an aside, anger is inspiring my writing because I wrote this long and beautiful post that blogger lost when I clicked publish. Thank goodness I'm not sleeping cause I'll be up a while trying to recreate that thing!
But I digress.
The first line of the post suggests that all bloggers want to be writers. I disagree. There are a significant number of bloggers out there who care naught for the proper turn of a phrase, much less stringing them into a coherent and compelling whole. These are the people who use their blogs as cyber-extensions of their real lives. Who use the written forum to gossip and play and bully. These are also the people who type like they text - all done as fast as possible, no time spent, no effort expended, words reduced 2 stuf lik this. C'mon people - I only text like that when i'm driving. Get real!
Anyway....the bloggers whom I read take the time to put effort into their work. We may not share our true identities with the blogosphere, but we share our true selves, something much more precious and guarded. We write not to please others, but to please our selves. Sometimes that means a lengthy tale, a dream, or a diatribe.
I am a very private person. You will never see a photograph of me on this blog or an identifying detail. I was actually quite frightened when I started getting comments, afraid that it would be someone who would recognize me. I started this blog just as an outlet for the words I couldn't say to the people who were special to me, so I wrote them here, knowing they would never read them but not having the patience to write them longhand. But as time has passed, I have started to use this not only to exorcise demons, but to stir them up a bit as well. One person who knows me in real life has this address, and he never reads it anymore....even so, I stay away from the personal stuff and try to write that which will connect with someone.
I think we all do that. Whether it's a dream, a story, or a current event commentary, I think we all try to strip away the identifiers. We strive to use that one common thread of language to delve beneath who we are and into what we are. I speak only for myself, but I think that if I can hone my words to the point that, for one brief moment, you forget that you don't know my face or my name, and can instead identify with the moment frozen in time, or see a picture of what I'm describing, or feel the heartbreak or joy or elation or confusion....if I through my words can reach beyond the day to day and evoke a moment of shared emotion, then my muse, whomever it is that day, has been successful.
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9 comments:
Yea, I don't think I want to be a writer through my blog either.
My blog started out as an experiment. I really couldn't imagine what kind of people would be interested in the stuff I care most about. Were there only geeks who would think that I talk sense, or would there be other 'normal' people too?
Nobody in my real life knows about the blog. In fact, I have every one fooled so that they think that I think (whooo, took some time to get that right, I think ;-) ) that writing in blogs is a pure waste of time & energy.
That texting thing reminded me of a friend who texted (consult: hick dictonary) me while having sex. He's wild.
God. That came out wrong. Its not that we are gay or anything ;-)
*ducks brokeback mountain jokes*
In Greek, the muse's name is very pretty; it's pronounced ef-TER-pi. I actually have a student with that name!
Chloe,
You're right - that's a lok prettier than it reads. Or at least, than it reads to an American who only speaks French and rudimentary German :)
Yoda,
I no u rnt gay.
First off, don't avoid your social circle in fear of seeing one person. Be strong, go out and have fun. Show this person he doesn't have full control over you. Your stronger then that.
As for the bloggers, I agree with you. When I first started, I didn't spell check or grammer review. I wrote like I thunk...see, there it is again. I've come across blogs from people who seem to only post to make someone's life hell. But now, I like to intelligent posts by intelligent writers. Dick and fart jokes are fun once in a while, but my brain cell doesn't get much of a workout from that.
So the writters that i read, keep writing...And I'll keep thunking.
Claire, I suppose you're right about the other bloggers out there, the ones who aren't in any way literary or concerned about good writing, but somehow I've avoided them. Some bloggers may not recognize themselves as writers, but they sure string together a good sentence and write in a prose style that goes down smooth.
Like this blog, for instance.
I posted a comment to this blogpost on the first day it was up here, but there was a Blogger.com "error," and it disappeared.
Take my word for it; it was witty, poignant, intelligent and witty.
I just can't remember what I wrote.
Stupid Blogger.com
Farrago,
Yeah, that's happened to me a lot lately. I'm getting to the point where I almot write my posts elsewhere, copy, paste, save as draft, then edit and add any links or anything.
mr. schprock,
Why, thank you. My only goal, aside from connecting with the reader for a bit, is to do so in a way that's not stilted or obtrusive, or pushes them away because I'm using a rough style or huge words. Oh yeah - and to crack a few jokes along the way.
Flash,
You were right - I did go out. It was weird, but it was do-able. Baby steps.
I used to be completely anonymous, but as I have continued to blog, my true self slips out bit by bit. There are many people on the Internet who now know my full name, and where I live. For my children's sake, I worry about that. I will have to admit though, that there are precious few things that I will not talk about. It's taken me about a year of blogging to get to that point...and I'm not sure if it's really the best thing sometimes. I should hold back more often, I think.
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