Cutting right to the chase as it regards my previous post.
It was always my intention for this blog to be something different from most of the blogs out there. I wanted a record -- of what I was working on at a given time, how I felt about it, and what I was obsessing over. A production diary, not just for a single production, but for anything I was giving my time and creative energy to. Stuff like my birthday post really doesn't fit those qualifications at all -- and though that sort of introspection is not odd for me on a nightly basis, privacy, personal principles, and the existence of the black book usually means those grievances don't get aired here. But some still make it past all that. I think, sometimes, maybe they shouldn't.
Yet sometimes putting stuff out here makes me feel better. And there's not a long list of things that do that, which makes me think I shouldn't swear off the practice completely. And nothing I said yesterday is any less true today. Yet the blogs I admire, the ones that made me think a space like this could work for me, don't let the depressives rants slip through.
I'm too split on this subject, and I feel it would be unfair to promise to myself to do one thing or the other from now on. Some days I get things done, and some days things are bad. Similarly, some days the things that get done won't be posted even though they should be, and some days the bad will probably take center stage. What I do know, and this might not make sense to everyone, is that things like yesterday's post say to me that in the future I may have to abandon this journal.
And why does that scare me?
To other things. I'd like to thank Ian and Julia for looking at "Nova" for me. I can't thank them enough, and hope to pick their brains further on it. I know John and I have also gone over it, I imagine Kyle has had a look, and I sent one to Savannah too. However, that's only five people so far, and ADrive tells me that eight different ISP's have downloaded it. Not calling anyone out, but if you have taken a look, I'd like to talk to you about what you thought. You can comment in this post, or send me an email at mojo.wire.production@gmail.com. I'd really appreciate it.
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I agree totally in that the blogs that I also admire are not overly depressive or prone to childish rants; but I think it says something about the medium itself and what we've done with it in that everyone, myself included, feels inclined to share those emotions online.
Percentage-wise, I think the posts you're referring to take up such a small portion of this blog that they're lost among the real creative energy you have going here. I wouldn't worry about it.
Ian
June 25, 2009 at 10:36 AMI think you make a good point, though I'll admit I still don't entirely feel like I'm "sharing" anything in this space, which I think has more to do with mindset than anything else.
It's actually really hard to nail down what I mean here -- I certainly acknowledge this is a public spot, but I also realize it doesn't get considerable traffic or act as a particularly sound way of keeping in touch with people or telling them what I'm up to [Re: narcissism]. Coupled with the fact that I operated the blog in secret for the first few months, it's still very hard for me to consider it more than a personal dumping ground for whatever's on my mind.
And to the catharsis aspect I mentioned, there's also something odd I've noticed about posting here -- in day to day life there are things we can't talk about, other things we can talk about, and then varying degrees in the middle of those two, like something we might feel we need to say but choose not to for privacy reasons, or more specifically, things we can say to some people and things we can't say to others. That comes into play in trying to keep records and journals and such in a way I didn't expect, as there are some things that I would never feel comfortable sharing with someone, but can scrawl down on a piece of paper and just feel better for getting out of my head at all. There are also things that I feel need to get out less privately, or maybe I don't feel they need to be shared, but actively keeping them a secret causes me anxiety, and keeping them on paper privately doesn't provide the intended relief. Maybe this would be the sort of thing I would tell a mid-range confidant or small group of friends in a more casual setting, if I had more handy, but instead I turn here, and get a similar relief like that.
But even that I can't say with certainty, because some of those thoughts/feelings/happenings I still don't feel entirely comfortable putting down here. Another gray area, where I think entries like this come from. Often times that has less to do with any sort of casual privacy, and more has to do with trying to maintain this space as a place where the very public things are posted, and so are the not so very public things sometimes too.
You are right that I probably shouldn't worry about it this much. And I'm glad it doesn't seem imbalanced, as I'm not sure if it was a problem what fixing it would mean about my candor in this space.
Randall Nichols
June 25, 2009 at 8:52 PM