a penguin was asking for some input on questions about blogging. you can check it out here. i’m going to post my reply because it’s almost a reason why i blog.

her question is:

– what has writing online/the blogging community done for you? how did you
> get involved? why do you stay involved? what are your thoughts about sharing
> your poetry/words online?

well i’m going to point this more at writing online as opposed to the blogging community angle. i write online almost as a catharsis, just for myself. i don’t so much share as just write publicly, like scrawling my thoughts on a subway wall. i think that most poets (and by that i am encompassing bloggers, using it as a loose term not restricted to classical definitions of ‘poetry’) write because they can’t keep their ideas inside. the fact that someone else reads what i write is entirely secondary. it’s the same reason that i play guitar when no-one is around to hear. i’ve always felt like my brain was a huge jumble of ideas that has been waiting to get out, and a blog gives an outlet to shape those ideas, or at least release them from my brain. as to a blogging community, i don’t really know how to define it. is it the blogs that i read on a semi regular basis? or the ones that i interact on? i think the yearning for kinship, of like minded people is what has brought people to other’s blogs, and that is a basic need that is more easily fulfilled online. where previously you might have had to ferret out a poetry class, or independant coffeeshop somewhere, now you can interact from the comforts of your armchair, read and have read your flowing prose, all from safety. some last thoughts about sharing your words online: it’s definately a risk, especially for people who are open and can share their personal lives. i have a great respect for them. if, however, i was truly worried that someone might critique something i’ve wrote in a mean way, or if i had a very fragile self-image (well, i mean, more than most….) then i wouldn’t have put stuff online in the first place, it would still be in a hardbound journal stuck under my mattress.
sorry for going on and on.. that damn penguin is too tempting not to follow.

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