The love part: I love to write. I love my kids. Ergo, I love to write about my kids. You write what you know, you know?
The hate part: Sometimes it feels wrong to write about my kids for public consumption. I worry about exposing them to scrutiny in the everlasting cyber-world. I worry about coming across as self-promoting or self-aggrandizing.
So I've done a lot of thinking lately about why I blog (as well as, should I blog). This questioning shows up in a short story I wrote this spring called "Moby Squirrel" (you can read it here! Helloooo, self promotion) that spoofs parenting blogs.
It's from a series of stories about the little, fictional town of Morris Mill. (Another published Morris Mill story can be found here!) Inexplicably, every story is about squirrels, even the ones still in my head."Moby Squirrel" -- with a wink toward Melville's classic -- is narrated by a mother who uses her blog to brag about her children and her over-the-top parenting methods, all under the guise of offering valuable advice. She also thinks quite highly of her blog-ability, saying "Some day my blog might put Morris Mill on the map."
And of course there's a white squirrel in the story.
I wrote this snarky, little story to laugh at myself and to come to terms with the extreme of who I don't want to be and what I don't want to do with this blog. I'm still working out what I do want from blogging.
So far, my answer is this: For someone like me who sees life as a narrative, the world is full of stories. And a story is meant to be shared.
My urge to write stems from that same impulse that drives you to share an anecdote. You can probably think of a time when something funny or interesting or inspiring happened to you, and you were near bursting to tell it. Maybe you called a friend or told the first person you saw or shared it with everyone you ran into that week or still embellish it at dinner parties. Sometimes a story -- whether fiction or non-fiction -- simply needs to be told and is going to throttle you until you let it out.
Sometimes you even need to tell a story despite considerable risk to yourself, your subject, and your audience. About five years ago, I attended the funeral of a beloved friend -- a World War 2 vet who had lived exuberantly and died in the full confidence of the Christian faith. The mourners were invited to stand up during the church service and share stories about Stan. Many described through their tears how they had been touched by his generosity, friendliness, or conviction. Then one mutual friend made his way up to the pulpit and told a hilarious story about joining Stan for a beer at Hooters and how Stan chatted up the beautiful waitress and invited her to church. The story was risky -- this was church and this was a funeral. But it was also exactly right -- a mood-lightener that illustrated so many of the things we loved about Stan.
It was a risk well taken.
That's what I hope this blog will be: every story a risk well taken.
And may present readers and future readers (including my children) forgive me when I fall short of that aim.
(Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lensjockey/761639596/)
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