It’s 2.30am and the lights are low in my apartment. I was on the verge of bed when I saw a tweet from the singer John Mayer that made me think, so I took a look at his Twitter page, and I saw this:
“There’s this moment in creation, when you’ve made something truly special, where you become euphoric. And then, utterly lonely.”
I’ve been feeling that tonight, the lonely.
I’ve failed to do what I wanted to do this evening. I’m stuck, blocked, and it was pissing me off until it just made me sad.
You see, for months I’ve been procrastinating on the “About” page I’d like to make for this blog. It’s one of the perks of WordPress, paginating your blog. I thought a “Hi, I’m Steff, I’ll be your blogger” page would be handy. A place where people could learn a little about me. Maybe find a fucking email address. I know. I KNOW! Jesus, eh? (Which, for the record, is smuttysteff [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com, should you have questions or want to say hi.)
I could do a 150-word bio but that’d hardly be my style, now, would it?
Because here’s the thing. And, also very much my style, we’re taking a winding series of digressions here. C’mon, bear with me, it’s practically 3am.
Without ado, digression one. Last night I did this other social thingie, meeting a few folk, hookin’ up. It was all right, some good peeps there, but it’s ultimately probably not my bag for the most part, just because most of the folk there are looking for something to gain, it seems, from each other, which is the insincere nature of the networking beast. If my livelihood ever comes from networking for my writing, well, I’m fucked. Seriously. I’m way too myself at those events and put my foot in my mouth often. People who love me love me, but…
I guess I’ll just have to write better than all of them, then. I’ll be crack-a-lackin’ on that right away, sir.
I’m a cynic, and while others may have something they’re selling, I don’t. Not here, not there. Not yet, anyhow. Never say never?
Yeah, I’ll try to sell adspace on my blog… which entails me signing up at Blogads and nothing else, because I just don’t have the fucking time or inclination to bother. I probably should. But I don’t. It’s not even beer money.
I don’t even spend time fixing this blog up. I never plan ahead for the writing. Editing is a 15-minute affair. I don’t make notes, really, on what to do or the direction I want to go in, other than “Oh, I’d like to write about X. Where’s a Post-it note?”
And yet.
And yet this blog is probably the most important thing in my life right now.
I don’t write as often as I should. I’d like to write daily. I have in the past, in the EB White 500-words-every-single-day kinda way. But I’m also a fan of Robertson Davies’ conviction that a writer ought not write until the thought of not writing becomes unbearable.
I write for here less frequently than I did, more because I’ve drifted to Davies’ methodology of late, but I think I have “good” postings outweighing the balance as a result.
But… this blog? Four years now. Four.
Earlier, cleaning up, I found a gym photo pass that was taken around when I began this blog. It’s propped against my monitor — bad hair, fat face, unhealthy, no sense of self, no image projecting. Where I sit now, at my 1910 big ol’ teacher’s desk, staring into the mirror above my monitor… well. Fuck, I’ve changed. And that’s just on the outside! Inside? Jesus, I’ve been fucking strip-mined. I have revisited nearly every heartbreak, loss, and fuck-up of my life over the last four years and just gutted myself in the process.
And it’s ALL on this blog. The surfacing of it is here. The deeper catalysts and chasms, well, they’re all in me. But I wrote this, I lived this. To you, it’s a skirting look into someone else’s world. A voyeuristic dalliance, at best.
You’re a fly my my existential wall, and I let you watch.
I share more than most bloggers, and don’t I know it, but it’s still just a fractured kaleidoscope you’re peering through. Believe me, it’s fractured.
Me, though, when I reread these ditties of mine, it all comes crashing back.
So, tonight, trying to sort out, really, what this blog is, what I think it says, where I think it fits in “classification” on the blogosphere? A surprisingly emotional and blocked journey.
I’m not sure what to say of it. I mean, I’m the “blogging changed my life” poster girl. It gave me back to myself. By writing for an audience, I had to more carefully explore my world and my processes, I had to filter things in a way that would give you want you needed to know, and allow me to work through what I wanted to, while still keeping something for myself. I had to seek commonalities of experience, make things explained in a way that would connect you to me, but, in doing that, I became connected to you. I too learned I wasn’t alone in my experiences. My life resonated with me, and I learned to see myself more as others did. That’s a gift.
If I had to video-blog this journey of mine, where a camera captured my eyes while I spoke on these very same matters? You wouldn’t have gotten a fucking word out of me. I don’t enjoy wearing my vulnerabilities for others to see, at least not in numbers.
But the anonymity, the neatness and precision of words on a screen, it gave me a chance to feel like I had a place to say something.
This, blogging, has never been about any quest for fame and fortune for me. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m a terrific writer. I know I have a unique voice. Better yet, I think I have something to say and that my contribution is valuable. I’m still working on the craft, not trying to make it a business. I’m not ready for writing to be my life. Not yet.
So what the hell does that make this blog? And what do I want to make it?
I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s just a journey for me right now. I don’t want it to be more. I don’t want it to lose its innocence and naivety — as if what one girl thinks or experiences really amounts to much in the scheme of things.As if my philosophical ramblings carry any weight against the voices of the past.
What is my blog?
Enough. Right now, my blog is enough. For me.
Whether I find a way to express this all in a neatly-digestible way, well, we’ll have to wait and see. But it brings me back to John Mayer’s tweet, about the loneliness of creation, and what hit me was, four years of going to that place time and time and time again. Remembering all the incredible highs and lows, all felt in this chair, peering at the same things with funny furrowed brows as I wrestled with my ideas and expressions.
Funny enough, I’d do it all again.
Your blogs twang my strings but I’m still tuning up. We do it because we don’t have a choice right? My very first blog ‘e-motions’ said that. It’s like the digestive process only mental. Digested thoughts need to be evacuated so we can move on. Would love to know – if you were put on the spot – which of ALL your blogs were you most proud of?
Tony Letts’s last blog post..NIGHT-TIME MANOEVRES
Whaddya mean, the blog posting or actual blog as a whole?
Well, the blog as a whole is a blog, each posting is called a posting, so you mean postings.
Can’t tell ya — there’s more than 1,000 here. Between this and my OTHER blog, I’ve written 2,500 postings since Nov. 2004. So.
Can’t tell ya.
That’s part of the “About” project will be compiling a list of my best shit. 🙂
But you can click on “Best of Steff” in Categories on the Sidebar and you’ll see SOME of what I consider my best work over that time?
I kind of see you as a person who is now in probably a different space than the person who created a blog called “Smut and Steff” With all your experience you could maybe try to get a column in a newspaper like the Georgia Straight or in some independant. You could also try podcasting. I think it would be cool to hear your voice and for all your readers. You could put that cbc interview you did up. I think your site could be spruced up with audio and images. I would also change the name of the blog to reflect a more mature person. Your blog is less about smut these days and more about other issues. I think your readers rather than staying in that young age group are growing with you. Domains are only $10 a year and if you get a new domain you can have your readers of smutandsteff automatically redirected to the new domain. Email me if you want me to elaborate further.
Mike