When Blogging Give You Laryngitis

Or: A Blogging Voice Is Hard to Come By

If you’ve tweeted with me recently…

…or if you’ve read comments I’ve left on others’ blogs…

…or if you’ve paid close attention to my blog posts over the last month or so,

…you know that I’ve been worrying about my vision and my voice.

When I started this blog, I had a vision for it: I knew I wanted it to be my platform for launching my novels, and I knew I wanted it to be an encouraging, inspiring place to talk about writing.

What I didn’t know was just how to translate that vision into reality.

I still don’t know. I can’t give you a “5 How-Tos for Turning Your Blogging Vision into Reality.” That, however, would make a cramazing blog post, and if you write it, tell me. I will link back to you.

Anyway, I’m still figuring out the how-tos. Judy Dunn (of catseyewriter.com) and I have had several conversations about blogs as labs.

Blogs Are Big, Friendly Dogs

I mean, no: Blogs aren’t big, friendly dogs who lick your face and make big, sad eyes at you. Blogs are laboratories, in which you can experiment with the crazed enthusiasm of a ten-year-old with her first chemistry set.

Mix things! Pour things into each other and see what happens! Sometimes you’ll get gunk, and you’ll get in trouble because you made the house smell like rotten eggs an hour before the neighbors come over for coffee and ice cream. (I might or might not be waxing nostalgically anecdotal here.)

Sometimes, though, you’ll pestle and mortar a few elements into your blog that create a spectacular bang. And that’s when it turns glorious.

So, that’s the blog-as-lab concept. It’s all fun and games, ’til someone gets a thumb burnt off. I’m learning not to be scared to try new stuff (see my recent first video blogs).

When The Dogs Worry Me

The operative word of the previous sentence is “learning.” As I hinted above, I still get nervous about my blog’s vision and voice. If my vision is the theory, then my voice is the practice. And I’m not talking about how my voice sounds in my videos (even though I personally don’t get the greatest thrill out of listening to that, lemme tell ya).

No, what I’m talking about are these questions:

When I write my blog posts, am I being genuine? Am I being sincere?

If I’m not being genuine and sincere, do I at least sound genuine and sincere?

Am I being myself?

How much am I holding back because I’m too freakin’ scared of getting rejected for whatever bizarre reason my subconscious chooses to drum up this time?

I know I’m connecting with readers — but how much more would I be connecting if I weren’t holding back?

Am I truly so terrified of making myself vulnerable?

Three weeks ago, my first novel came out. One would think that means I’m not afraid of being vulnerable. Sharing a novel with the world is a pretty soul-baring thing to do.

But still.

I blog. And I feel myself holding back.

Is it fear?

Or is it pride?

Does part of me still think I have to pretend I’ve got it all together? After all this time and after getting knocked off my self-gifted pedestal again and again, does part of me still believe I’ve gotta show the world some perfect example?

Am I too full of myself to share my true self with you?

In Every Job That Must Be Done…

I found a fun thing this week. Somebody tweeted it, and sadly I cannot remember who it was. But you can find said fun thing here:

Tweet Topic Explorer.

At the bottom of the Tweet Topic Explorer screen, you can type in any Twitter ID, and the system will generate a picture of all these nifty circles of different sizes and colors. Whichever words that Twitter ID tweets the most, those will be in larger circles. And they’re grouped together by color, showing which words appear together in most tweets.

If you click through that link above, you’ll see that I did this with my own Twitter ID. I also did it with several of yours. But I ain’t tellin’. ; )

And as soon as I saw what the Tweet Topic Explorer generated for me, I felt like a burden had dropped off my shoulders.

There, my dear inklings, tweetlings, and darlings, is my vision for my blog. Why did the burden drop off my shoulders? Because what I tweet about, I’m blogging about. And if most of my tweets include those words you see up there, that means I’m tweeting and blogging about all the things that are part of my vision.

love
novel
book
color
coffee
read
tim — which is actually “time,” if you must know. ; )

Things I’m thinking as a writer. Things I care about as a writer. Things that keep me going as a writer. Not to mention the people. (Tweetlings, follow those IDs you see in my Tweet Topic cloud thingy. They’re pretty cramazing folks.)

All of these are part of my vision. ‘Twould seem I’m sharing more of that vision than I thought I was.

And as for my worries about my voice…well, if my mind weren’t sitting back and letting my fingers do the talking for this post, I probably wouldn’t have talked about slobber-happy retrievers and crazed ten-year-olds with chemistry sets.

Here’s to fun little hints that let me know I’m “doing it right.” (You know who you are.)

Here’s to keeping it real, and here’s to sharing more and more and more.

_______________________________

Speak up, y’all. What are the vision/voice concerns that keep you up at night?

Is your struggle with fear? With pride? With something else?

What keeps you from making yourself vulnerable?

What are the obstacles keeping you from your audience?

What’s the one obstacle you can pulverize right now?

Tweetlings, do the Tweet Topic thing — what surprises you about your results?