Meta meta meta…


This blog is always on my mind.  And I end up thinking a lot about why I don’t write more because it isn’t like I don’t have a lot to say.  It’s just that I think that it has to have something to do with a song.  Like I am trying to make a point.  But in trying to make that point, I stopped making any point.  The truth is that a lot of this will have nothing to do with music, and if I put off writing the ideas I have until I find the appropriate forum, then I will lose those ideas.  But it’s time to also accept that one of my art forms is writing itself.

So that leaves me in a place to talk about the actual writing itself.  Every new idea I have on the original format, which was music as soundtrack to my life, is censored immediately.  When I first started the blog, it was sort of private and personal, and I didn’t write like anyone was actually going to read it.  But then I got a Facebook account and I had my notes subscribe to the RSS feeds.  The Facebook account led to getting back in touch with a large number of people I never thought I’d talk to again.  Family, friends, co-workers…  Then I thought, maybe I should unsubscribe my Facebook account to the RSS feed.  Then I realized that this must be a common problem with fiction.  Maybe even the fiction writer’s dilemma.

Most fiction is derived from experience.  I have always thought like a writer, and I have a lot of ideas that I shelve because I think about the people from which I would derive the characters.  And I think about them reading the story and maybe seeing things that I think of them that I wouldn’t even write in a journal.  Sometimes these are thoughts that I wouldn’t even admit to myself.  But somehow after writing for a long time, the narrator becomes detached from the person.  Another character with human flaws.  The story comes off as the truth, but it’s just another flawed account of the events.  Yet another fiction within the fiction.

This is certainly how I think of the stories I have used for this blog.  I have had so many groups of friends.  So many experiences in different settings and always a different role.  I am sure that I am not unique in this.  But I have always had the feeling that I have been somehow lying about other experiences.  I tell a story to one group of people that I know will never meet the person I am telling the story about.  How is the story different if I am telling that story knowing that I will be introducing the subject of the story to the audience I am telling the story to?

As the number of people that are exposed to my blog increases, especially through my Facebook list, then I get more paralyzed about what to write in the blog.  I think about the people in the story reading it and I get lost.  If it were one story a month, or a year, or whatever, then I would have time to digest what I felt about those possibilities, but I wrote like 60 significantly questionable stories last year in the space of 4 months.  The rest of the stories I am confident the participants would approve of my version of events.

My memory is ridiculous, so I sit around wondering and worrying about what people think about some of the stuff that I wrote.  It’s a ridiculous fear of rejection or something.  As the number of entries rose, I felt more and more ambiguous about any new ideas.  Another piece of my inner world suddenly public.

This happened when I performed as a musician as well.  Or when I write songs.  My inner world is rich.  And it’s mine.  If I create publicly consumed art regularly, then I have to answer for my thoughts.  It’s obviously been too much of a burden for me.  It makes me wonder about all of self destructive phases of my life.  It’s another explanation.  I build up to a point where I experience some success and then I bail because I don’t want to deal with the responsibility of what I create.  I admire people who can do it regularly without bailing.  I guess you have to have a thick skin and a short memory.

I want to keep writing about music.  I want to keep writing autobiographically.  But I have other ideas that are just as important to me.  And if I don’t write about them, the music and stories aren’t going to get written either.  And since they are my rules, I will change them.  I am not going to change the name of the blog.  365 songs is fine.  I think it leaves it open to anything if I ignore it entirely.  The tag line “Whales and other audible dissent.” is probably more accurate.

And if I write about you and you don’t like it or you don’t agree with my version of events, start your own blog.  But as a friend recently said when I talked about this particular subject, the people that I am writing about probably would never recognize themselves even if I named them.  Which makes this whole discussion pointless.  I wonder if even he would remember that he told me that.  It was only a week ago.  Maybe I have discovered a new phobia.  Fear of being culturally significant.

Having written all of this out, I feel the whole subject is ridiculous.

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One response to “Meta meta meta…”

  1. Good to see you writing again. I am often sad when I look across the street and see y’all house occupied with people not you, Justine, Iggy, and little Lucy. But– i am glad you guys are enjoying yourselves!

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