I'm sure every writer has their ways of avoiding the writing they should be doing. Lately mine has been blogging. My sister has looked over my book proposal and said it's good, but needs a few more tweaks. I actually rewrote the concept section, because I felt it needed to be clarified, but really the heavy lifting has been done. I'm procrastinating on sending it off to agents. I'm terrified. Yes, I did in fact rewrite my book proposal, but I also wrote several posts for Silicon Valley Moms blog.

A small voice says "It's giving you more visibility, Thida. It helps your writing career really." while the rest laugh and says "Yeah and sending off your book proposal would help you more."

However we're making progress. My ways of avoiding writing are in no particular order and how I tackle them:
MUSHING (I don't do it anymore)
World of Warcraft (ditto)
Eating (can eat and write. With two small children, I have lots of non-messy food like cheese sticks)
Drinking Tea (take a sip of tea then write)
Chatting (set a time when chatting ends*)

Notice that none of these activies actually involve writing while blogging at least involves writing. Yes, the self-justification continues.

But I don't have a strategy for taming blogging. Occasionally I hit serendity where I blog about something that relates to my book, but that's uncommon. Do you have any tips?

*unless it's Mary Anne whom I don't see often enough

I started originally on LJ years ago, because gconnor told me about it and I was active on Usenet and it seemed a pretty cool idea, a way to keep a more permanent record of my thoughts and I thought I should write more. And my friend Mary Anne kept a online diary. But I didn't actually write regularly at all. I didn't have a blog voice. I couldn't figure out what to write about. And when I did write entries, I got maybe one comment from gconnor. So I had all the fear of writing in public with none of the feedback.

Then when Special K was born, I joined an online bboard and I used that to record things about her. I became part of a great community, and met folks like whymommy but it wasn't permanent. The posts got erased after a period of time. But I found my voice then.

Then Little T was born and it was all too much and I stopped doing much of anything online. Other things like email or even newsgroups and bboards required me to respond within a certain period of time or the conversation had moved on and I have periods where all I can respond to are my family's needs. And then I came back to blogging. I needed a place to record my thoughts and what was happening with me and Little T, because it was too much to hold in my head. And frankly I was getting really tired of talking about it with my family and friends. It's all so grim and depressing and I get asked many of the same questions and the answers are never easy. Talking about it exhausts me and these are not problems that get better with talking. But I do want people in my life to know what's going on. And blogging offered an easy way for some of my friends to know. And it also helped me be a bit more vulnerable and ask for help. I have a hard time asking for help. I've gotten better in the past 18 months because I've had to.

Then I discovered that it actually helped a few other people as well on occasion. I discovered that writing about my personal truth was actually what my writing was about. I found the courage to start submitting stuff for publication. I started writing my non-fiction book. That book is still there waiting for me when I can swim. I'm not drowning now, but I'm treading water pretty fast. Yes, I write more carelessly than I do in my other writing, because I don't edit it as much. I edit once, maybe twice, and that's it.

I discovered that on LJ I can give people advice/comments/support when I have time and not respond when I don't. This works great for me. On other online forums, I feel this pressure to respond all the time. I'm not saying this pressure comes from anywhere but inside of me, but I still feel it.

I've always had online friends. I'm gregarious and I like meeting people wherever I find them. When possible, I prefer to meet people face to face. However I've entered a weird period of my life where I tend to avoid parties, or any gatherings of more than a few people, because well-meaning people ask me about Little T after months of not seeing me and I never have good news. I used to love parties. I find that talking with people who have read my LJ makes conversation far easier. I do want to talk, but about something else than Little T's medical issues. Anything else. And yet Little T's medical issues are an enormous part of my life that unfortunately intrude on many mundane aspects of my life, even why I'm there with him, so if you don't understand what's going on, you'll get lost.

So I think right now LJ fills this important need I have to keep connected, keep feeling part of a community, keep feeling I'm helping people in some small way, but keeping it within the very small amount of time and effort and energy I have to devote to anything beyond my family.

All this was in response to a post by jpallan who basically asked why do you blog? "Do you write more carelessly" Do you feel this is an appproriate way to start relationships of any kind? Implicit in these questions and in her reply was: How did you get started in the first place? Are you a social person in the real world? How is your socialising in the LJ/blogosphere different from your socialising in the real world?

At the end, she said ". . . watch this post get zero comments." That's my fear too. But here I go. Here's my answer. Please share yours with me.

As I feel moved, I'm writing some vignettes about my life, because when I went back, I found I enjoyed reading the few vignettes I did write. I hope you enjoy them too! I went back and tagged the few I found. Please feel free to critique the writing on this last one and any future vignettes tagged with writing. My life...well...I can't stop you from critiquing that as well.

This morning Little T's blood pressure was 98/61. Keep with that number, Little T! I'm so relieved that things weren't as bad as they told us on Tuesday. I'm not sure if he'll have to take another medication or not, but really it's a minor worry compared to everything else. I'm assuming for now that his high blood pressure is due to the high doses of steroids, a limited time condition. His hematologist is telling us that around Feb 7, he has to be weaned off steroids whatever his platelet numbers. And that actually leads to my big worry -- Vincristine. He'll have to go on Vincristine/chemo or something else if his platelet numbers aren't normal and he's not on on steroids.

The signs don't look good right now since platelets of 91 aren't normal, but we have some time. Still it hangs over my head. And not being able to take Little T anywhere weighs me down. On rainy days when it's dark and gloomy, I hide. I drizzle. Today when it's sunny, and friends have contacted me to come play, I feel almost my old self. I've adapted to this strange life of constant handwashing, isolating my sunny social baby, and visiting the hospital once a week.

At the same time I'm embarrassed that I "made a fuss" about his high blood pressure. I was brought up to believe you don't make a fuss about anything. Like my grandmother had breast cancer and no one talked about it. In fact for a while I wasn't even sure if she actually had it. I still find it hard to talk about this stuff. And often I don't mention things we're told might happen when I don't think they will. This time I really did think there was a good chance he'd have to stay at the hospital for high blood pressure. That's what his hematologists were telling me and unfortunately they haven't been wrong about hospitals stays before.

The funny thing is that whenever I have "talked" about things as they happen, for whatever reason, we've had a better outcome than when I "talk" about it after the fact. I guess that should encourage me to do it more often. I'm trying.

With the new year I've decided to admit that I write real posts on Live Journal and that LiveJournal probably suits better the style of blogging that I do. I will start posting more personal entries here. When I first started blogging regularly, I wasn't sure what this journal would be. If I was going to write a beautiful blog that read like a novel like Belle in the Big Apple, or if it was going to be more like a journal. While I could take the time to write beautiful prose, it would detract from my book writing. You'd also hear from me far less often. And over the months, it's become clear, it's more like a journal. I write this for myself and for my friends and most of my friends are here.

Yesterday I wrote 1000 words today up to 11,775 on my non-fiction book. I thought I had chased away my cold with Vitamin C, echinacea and goldenseal, but it's back. Or maybe it's a different cold. I'll try these remedies again.

There seems to be a rivalry between Agentoo7 and Miss Snark, so I should say I read both.

The opera Doctor Atomic promised a big bang but ended with a whimper. I even heard a woman say "That was nothing." The bomb was still there at the end of the show! The music attempted modern cacophony, but it never varied in its deviation from the norm. So after a while it became too familiar. Though at times the sound effects were interesting. The composer said he wasn't familar with opera and sadly it showed.

The singing was frankly quite boring. Lots and lots of narrative singing. A couple of arias. No duets. Lot of words that explained the history. No rhyming. No couplets. No poetry. It was more like a recitation of a history lesson. I was moved a couple times by the music and the image of the atomic bomb hanging over the crib. I was never transported. You'd think with such a gripping subject as the building of a nuclear bomb, he could do better. I was disappointed, even with the low expectations I had.

On Sunday we drove up to the Salmon Festival. Special K loved feeding the rainbow trout fry. Little T loved watching her and everything else.

We gazed down at some ambitious salmon who were trying to gather early to spawn, but the gate to the fish ladder wasn't open yet. We talked to a park official who said the water wasn't cold enough yet. The salmon were immature. The eggs were unripe. In some ways I feel like those salmon. I'm not ready. The gate hasn't been opened yet. And even after the gate is opened, I'll still have to jump up. One of my friends wrote a poem about salmon leaping up the salmon run and law school.

I'm still an immature salmon who has 9250 words of her 75k non-fiction book written. I wrote 850 words today. I'll write a lot more and have a solid book proposal before I send it off to agents. I think I'm about a month away. That's about how far the salmon are too. It amuses me.

I talked to my sister more about her former life as a literary agent. I've also been reading Miss Snark's blog. I thought it was interesting that she wrote she wasn't one of the most powerful agents in town. On the Internet no-one knows if you're a dog. And I laughed when she told people to stop querying her. I can't imagine querying someone whose work I know nothing about. Of course I need someone who believes my non-fiction book is wonderful. But I'd also prefer an agent who's already sold a book similar to mine.

I also revised my personal essay about my struggles with breastfeeding to send to another parenting magazine.

One of the social horrors about having a seriously ill child is that I'm forced to shock well-meaning people, because I don't like to lie, and won't in front of my daughter, and they aren't listening properly, so they breeze by the warning signs that no, we're not talking about a simple malady here. I'm getting better at putting up warning signs. I've always used the word tumour, but now I've learned to use fewer words surrounding it. It seems to work better.

In talking about dealing with Little T, I tend to minimize the experience. I just don't want to relive the horror, or worse see horror in other people's faces.

It's one of the few things I prefer writing to talking about. It's easier to give the details just once. I do want people to know, but often I just don't want to talk about it. This is not a request to stop asking me about Little T. I like to know you care about me and Little T, but rather a thank you to those friends who do keep up with my journal and let me know by asking a specific question about it, so I know you're at least somewhat prepared for the answer.

This was all prompted by a question another blogger asked
"how does [blogging] alter how you present yourself? When you're writing, are there things you're aware of omitting, characteristics or traits that you exaggerate or minimize? What is the first difference I'd notice if I were speaking to you face to face? In what ways is your written voice truly you?"
Please answer the question yourself here.

Here's my answer:
To me, writing and speaking are fundamentally different. In person, I tend to meander back and forth. I'll pick up the thread of another topic and then perhaps wander back to it later. In coming back to the topic, I can repeat myself before moving to the next idea. My writing is a craft that I work on everyday. In my writing I like my words to flow together and similar ideas to be wrapped together in tidy paragraphs. I take time to reflect on what I write and edit it for clarity and cogency. And there you go. The first nouns that came to mind were meaning and understandability. And that's what you'd have heard in person, but I thought about it, and clarity and cogency are closer to what I actually mean, and are alliterative too.

In person, I tend to start a conversation by asking the other person some question about themselves. In person, my anecedotes tend to be related to anecedotes already told, or in response to a direct question. I have the British fear of being a bore, so I'd rather say a little and see if the person wants to know more. In my writing, it's Thida monologue all the time.

In person, I try to talk about things that the other person would find interesting. In my blog, I just write whatever I think someone might find interesting, though each blog entry does have a particular focus. I edit it a little, then put it up there.

I wrote previously that I was anti Blogging Marathon. I changed my mind...a little. shadesong is blogging for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in honor of a LJ person who died from the disease. I think it's fitting to have a blogathon in that particular case. Perhaps there are others that I don't know about.

I read on another blog that she's going to participate in a Blogging Marathon. I'm not telling you who, because I don't want to encourage her. She's not the only one. 215 people have signed up. I think it's very silly. Basically folks give you pledges if you blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours. I'm already available 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I hope it doesn't break your heart that it's not for you. I hope 24 hour marathons are not a new trend. A couple months ago, I was asked to donate and run for a 24 hour relay for some charity that I don't remember. I liked the charity, but I refused to donate or walk, and I've tried to block which one it was, so I wouldn't be prejudiced against them. I guess my mind block worked.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not against sacrifice. And I'm all for exercise marathons, because they give people motivation to get into better shape and also fundraise. But meaningless sacrifices just give people the false sense they're doing something great. Instead they could have done the same thing with less effort and spent the extra time making a meaningful sacrifice. If your charity is for sick children, why not spend just a fraction of the time you would have spent blogging 30 minutes for 24 hours to bring a meal to your local Ronald McDonald house. Or if it's for homeless people or a anti-hunger charity, serve soup at a homeless shelter.

No I'm not doing any of these things. If you've been reading, you'll know that dealing with my special needs son's day-to-day needs is about all the sacrifice I can handle right now. But you can bet that when I have the bandwidth to make other sacrifices, I will not consider blogging to be one of them. C disagrees with me. What do you think?

C found this interesting article "Writers make good bloggers, but does blogging affect good writing?" by Tom Dolby. I do agree with Dolby that the immediacy of publishing online is gratifying. I'm still waiting on some comments from my sister before I send off "His Tube Ate My Boob". I've only published in college newspapers and magazines, so I don't think I count as published yet.

However I'm fully aware that my blog doesn't contain my best writing. Is that fair you might think reading this blog? Well, yes, because you see, you have the immediacy of reading something I write almost everyday, and you don't have to pay anything to read this beyond Internet access. "Long form writing" as Dolby puts it, well it takes a long time. You write one draft, then you revise it, then you give it to some people to critique and if they're good, they say "Well, Thida, this bit is muddled and this bit needs expansion." and ask other questions and state other things that show that it's not quite the beautiful baby you hoped it was. And sometimes they disagree, and you revise it again and again, but in the end you find the heart center of your piece and it's much better for it. And that's even before you submit it for publication.

After writing the bit above, I realised I'd created this myth in my mind that I'd never published before, forgetting about an article in a college magazine, the college newspaper, where I eventually became editor in chief, and how I'd interviewed for a reporter job in Philly. Writing for a weekly or daily newspaper is a different beast than writing for a literary magazine or a novel. Closer to the truth is that until recently I was to scared to subject my writing to close peer review and therefore make it good enough for someone to actually pay for my writing. I do know enough to realise that's required. Obviously there was editing for the college newspapers and magazine, but not to the extent one would hope for in a professional setting. Perhaps I'm naive about this. We'll see.

So my point is that yes perhaps I'm "spilling some blood", some good ideas that might germinate into a fully grown novel or story. But I can also ramble on with no editor to tell me to cut that bit, revise this bit. I like that. I also don't find it the sapping of fertility that Dolby seems to find it, because I believe that part of the "alchemy of writing" is that painful critiquing and revising process.

Perhaps most importantly, blogging keeps me believing me my writing is a stream and not a well. It's the belief that I won't have enough that paralyses me. As my friend Jenny said "You have many interesting things to say. You don't have put them all here [in "His Tube Ate My Boob"]. You can cut this bit out and expand on it in another essay."