I get up in the evening, and I aint got nothing to say
I come home in the morning, I go to bed feeling the same way
I aint nothing but tired, man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help
Thanks, Bruce, that nicely sums it up. This blog is boring me.
I am reading, "The Little Red Writing Book" by Mark Tredinnick (you should buy it) and was convicted by his chapter on Poetics; writing as a means, not an end. He talks about finding your own voice and writing from a deep place:
You can't write well unless you are ready to write out of that wounded, brave, eternal soul that you are deep down. And sometimes that's going to hurt. Everything you are, everywhere you've been, and every significant other you've been there with. It is out of the true story of yourself that you must write. (pp. 152-153)
But . . . what if people don't like what you write. It's the same as not liking you! And I'm not brave.
While writing my thesis, I found it much easier to blog; it was a distraction and I was loving the opportunity to express my self in a more creative way. But now, it feels like a chore - maybe because I'm not writing from the true story of myself. I worried about people linking back to my blog from any of my comments, especially if their blog was different to mine, and just generally worried that it would be too personal. My solution is to set up a go-nowhere profile on Blogger, which I will use on the rare occasion I leave a comment, and to be less guarded.
I am in the middle of a fabulous mid-life crisis, pushing me to think about why I am petrified of being known. I felt panicky and dissolved into tears when my guy read the personal goals and passions I had recorded in the front of my planner/diary, which I had left on the bench. Weird.
As I begin to find my true story, I plan to share some of it with you. It's okay if that bores you, you don't have to read it! But I do have to write it (well, want to) and I'm bored writing with a not-quite-me voice. An announcer on the local Christian radio station once shared that he ended up in speech therapy from strain on his vocal chords. Without knowing, he was habitually attempting a deeper, more masculine voice; obviously his idea of what he should sound like. But it would, eventually, have ruined his voice. The irony of this is so like what we all do in our attempt to present ourselves favourably.
Our true voice, our true story. What if we knew it? What if we shared it?
