A Madwoman Spinning a Yarn.

Possibly starting with the community keynote readings at BlogHer ’09, I have been feeling overwhelmed, intimidated, self-deprecating about my abilities and my place here, here in this world where we are free to stamp our feet and say “This is my place” because on the internet, “place” is but a metaphor. “Place” is a presence, a following, a community, a vibe. “Place” is perception, and how do you stake a claim on perception?

Over the last five years – because yes, it has been five years, if you measure my time from the original post, the one that started it all – I have felt this intimidation several times and it always has a discouraging effect. Why bother? I think to myself. Someone else is already doing it, and doing it better than I do it. Not just one someone else, but countless someones else, so many that when I do let myself click on link after link after link I am overtaken with a reader’s respect for the beautiful language that other writers create, and a terrible, seething jealousy. I know I can do it, too, but I haven’t, or when I did, not enough people paid attention.

When this has happened I give up. I back away from the computer for a time, never swearing that I won’t return, unable, even, to articulate what it is I am feeling until the feeling itself passes. And when it does, just a little, I creep back into the internet, read those other posts and stories again, and start commenting. I remember that with this blog and my words I am making a difference. I remember that the people who faithfully read this blog are the same ones for whom I started it: my friends and family; and the same ones who kept me going: my internet community. It doesn’t have to be huge. It’s for me. It’s for you.

One friend recently said to me that she gave up commenting because I never reply. This is my reply, my heartfelt thank-you. Every comment you leave here, every stumble, every tweeted link, I notice them all, and they help to keep me going.

I remember that before the blog I wrote in various ways and places, to myself only or for other people. I wrote then as I write now – because the words bubble and grow inside me, forming themselves into sentences in my imagination the way those little floaty spots pass over my retina when move my eyeballs. I can’t escape them, I can’t shut them down. Nothing makes them stop. I have to write, or I will simply…

…what? I don’t even know. I’ve never experienced the “or” actually happening. Take away my computer, my pen and paper, my stick and patch of dirt, and I would be like the Marquis de Sade, writing on the walls of my prison in blood and excrement, or dictating my stories through the vents in my cell, a madwoman spinning a yarn.

Geoffrey Rush in “Quills” (courtesy of the studio that made it)

My writing will continue if this blog ever goes away, or the words get bigger than the blog. My writing will get better because of all of the other writers who make me jealous, who inspire me, who disgust me, who make me actually decide NOT to continue reading. Every one of them, even the terrible ones whose books get published for no discernible reason, can help.

—

This post was inspired – at this moment – by the following bodies of work:

BlogHer ’09 Community Keynote
Kyran Pittman’s blog
Vicki Forman’s “This Lovely Life”
Lena Lotsey’s blog
Heather Armstrong’s “It Sucked and Then I Cried”

Overall, I am inspired by everyone I’ve met because of this space. This place. My place.