I know something about mistresses. My dad had one.
As a writer, a blog can be just like a mistress for me. Here’s why:
1. Stroking. The instant gratification that comes from being heard with such ease (blogging) is the simple sticky honey trap for a person of words, like me.
2. Quick fix over Commitment? Sure, baby. Pounding out 80,000 words grows wearisome. Why not just pop out 800, for a quick fix? Sometimes, I ditch the old ball & chain writing project for a bit of Miss Right Now (blogging). Sometimes my dreams suffer for it.
3. On-the-fly modification. Meeting up with a mistress (my blog) can be exciting because not only can I be impetuous, but I can modify a lot to my liking whenever I please. I switch things up for added interest, or improvement. But, ink on paper…I’m married to it.
4. Familiarity breeds contempt. There’s nothing like living with your words to make them frustrating and lack-luster. Months on end of book project writing can just kill the romance, and lead to self-loathing at my own impotence. However, a short, hot rendezvous (a few hours) is the most I spend on any post. Hey, blog, don’t let me catch you leaving your toothbrush here, or it’s sayonara.
5. Adventure! Weekend trysts to exotic spots? Yes, please! I don’t have to be an expert when blogging. I can cover exciting, far-flung topics with just a few hours of pesky research.
My dad married his mistress, eventually. He still fought with wife #1 (my mom) all the time–but with the new wife, it was a new life of eggshell walking and apologizing. He probably didn’t anticipate this at the mistress stage.
I don’t think I want the same thing in terms of my writing. I have to keep blogging in check. The words, “Get back, you vile temptress!” comes to mind, until I realize that this would make it sound like it wasn’t my fault. But, it is.
Has your blog ever been like a “mistress” for you? In what ways?
And please share your insights.
What helps you stay on track with longer writing projects?
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I’m a big fan of his blog Everyday Liturgy. If you ever don’t know what to pray, rely on others, and pray with the help of their words. His blog is a great way to find the words to say. There’s a lot more to Thom, too, so drop by and check him out.
I am a Hypocrite: My Spiritual Guidance for Bloggers -Thom Turner
Like most arguments between married couples, I forget what this one was about.
I know I was probably being impatient, angry and saying not so nice words.
I was most likely being what British people refer to as a prig.
My wife won the day though. She sounded off a rejoinder that stung: “You know sometimes I wish you were like the person who writes on your blog.”
Ouch.
I am a blogger who has spent over five years writing about spirituality, theology and worship.
Michael Hyatt just wrote a blog post about why he blogs…what he has learned 1,000 posts later.
It got me to thinking that this is a great question to reflect on. For all of us. How long have you blogged? Why did you start? Has that changed over time? What are some things you’ve learned?
I’ll try to tackle that too:
In my pre-blogging days I sent out weekly emails to a list of family and friends called ethoughts (emailed thoughts). They were like little bits of inspiration in article form, and I grew a fervent and modest following.
Then Xanga (one of the first blogging communities) caught my eye, and the birth of blogging began for me. Back then, social media didn’t exist, so getting the word out had its challenges.
By 2006, I went to Blogger because of the flexible style, and I branched several blogs off as I tried to keep my personal thoughts and observations apart from spiritual and ministry style posts. The “emerging Christian conversation” was in its meteoric rise, and I wanted to dialogue and connect with other Christians asking tough questions that pat answers couldn’t solve.
From there I started a website; it also contained all my thoughts articles which numbered in the hundreds. My website didn’t connect seamlessly with the blog. That changed when I went to wordpress, and got my own domain name. It was then I re-grouped things into one area and web presence. Once I harnessed social media to promote posts and interact with other things really took off.
I’m not sure how many posts I’ve done, but writing 1 to 5 times per week since 2005 means I’ve pounded out many many ideas. I’d say thousands. The why of my blogging has changed. Maybe evolved.
It started as a way to share a message. Then, as I wanted to get a book published, it provided a platform for that to build an audience. My first manuscript got me noticed and signed by a well-known agent, but also did the impossible: It died not once but twice in the final round of the “pub board meeting”. I think everyone but the accountants wanted to print it.
When that failed, I had to rethink why I was blogging. I got more creative, and posts got more amusing, as well as covered deep and serious topics. So much has changed in publishing that I’ve wondered if I’d be better off publishing my own ebook. For me, blogging has distracted me from longer writing projects. (…more on that in another post…)
Here are a few things I’ve gleaned from blogging:
• Blogging can focus your talents and passions.
• Blogging can show you your faults and thoughtlessness (making room for growth).
• Blogging can connect you more deeply with others more than you might first assume.
• Blogging well is hard work of persistence.
• Blogging–for good or bad–can often reveal one’s inner life, like it or not.
Stuff I Do:
Now, I do blogging as more of a ministry. But, not a ministry in any traditional sense of the word. By using it as a tool, I try to make it help me be a better person, and encourage the same in others. It’s not just that of course; it’s many others things.
Stuff I Don’t:
I find that I’m not drawn to “Dear Diary” or “My random thoughts” or “rant” type blogs, unless there is an obvious personal (or universal) aspect; or it’s someone so interesting, that I can’t stay away. So, I find that I don’t write in that style on my own blog. I wonder if this will change?
The simplest way to put it is that I am a creative person. I would be creating even if no one was looking. Sometimes I do that with design, art, photography, cooking, but here, I do it mainly with words. They say writers write. I think so.
What style blogs do you steer clear of? What ones are you attracted to? What things have you learned along the way?
If you write a “why I blog” post this month, share the link!
Today’s post comes from Doug Jackson. Professor Jackson is a bona fide man of letters and a teacher of spiritual formation. He also blogs. He’s not the kind of expert that touts his CV. Rather, he’s a man acquainted with his humanity in a way the endears you to him right off, and a wisdom that can change you.
“For I am the sort of man,” Augustine once declared, “who writes because he has made progress, and who makes progress – by writing.”
Christian bloggers should rework Jane Austen’s dictum, “Write what you know,” and state it as follows: Write until you know. If we understand blogging as a process of self-discovery and even of self-formation, we may tread this track with greater gratitude and greater care.
Gratitude and care: Keeping an internal diary has long been seen as a spiritual discipline, from Augustine’s Confessions to Wesley’s journals to Mother Teresa’s recently published papers. The Internet tweaks this ancient practice by offering the perilous privilege of publication.
I say privilege because blogging encourages journaling by offering the incitement of instant readership. Journaling has never been one of my own spiritual practices because I am too much of a writer (or perhaps too little of a Christian) to stand the sound of one keyboard clattering. Writers write to be read, and while perhaps saints do not, most writers are at best saints-in-process. Tradition tells us that Abba John the Dwarf, at Abba Pambo’s direction, watered a stick every day for three years until it burst forth in fruit. I, however, simply will not chase the dead stick of writing if there is not a carrot of being read dangling somewhere on the end of it. George Bernanos’ country priest begins his Diary with the promise that after twelve months he will use it for kindling; by the end of the first chapter he amends it to “I’ll stuff it all away in a drawer to re-read it later with a clear mind.”
So blogging offers an incredible privilege: Writers who in the very recent past would have no outlet for their work can now find instant publication – and instant motivation. Anne Lamott notes the value of this kind of work:
I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do – the act of writing – turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.
But the privilege comes laced with peril: the deadly sin of wrath.
Blogs are self-edited and self-published. I can say whatever I want. Blogs are also released to cyber-space: I can’t unsay anything, even if I want to. This makes a blog a great place to get angry, but a poor place to repent. When I played football we often drilled using foam shields known as “air bags.” I noticed that guys who avoided physical contact at all costs suddenly went Jack Lambert on us during these sessions. We dubbed such selective warriors “Air Bag All Americans.” A blog can be a playground for Air Bag Martyrs who speak boldly from the behind the bunker of their firewalls.
But wrath is a deadly sin for a reason. Jesus equated insults with murder. People often ask me, “Does that mean calling someone a jerk is just as bad as killing him?” My standard reply is, “Not to him.”
Which is largely the point and takes us back to blogging as self-discovery: My anger may or may not harm my targets (with a readership like mine, probably not), but it tells me something about me. “The pleasure of anger,” explains C. S. Lewis, “the gnawing attraction which makes one return again and again to its theme — lies, I believe, in the fact that one feels entirely righteous oneself only when one is angry.
Then the other person is pure black, and you are pure white.” Ranting blogs probably reveal very little about my airbag victims, but they should tell me something about the state of my own soul.
And then there’s the temptation of attention: Wrath translates to readership because everyone loves the vicarious thrill of an Internet takedown. If we write to be read, we must take care lest we automatically write what people like to read. Donald Kaul once closed a review of Robert James Waller’s chick-lit romance “The Bridges of Madison County” by admitting, “I still don’t know what Waller has, but if I thought it was contagious, I’d kiss him.” If cyber-sneering and digital drive-by’s mean viral results, we’re too quick to kiss – well, whatever needs kissing.
Harry Farra’s “Little Monk” begins keeping a journal early in his vows, and later finds it to be “a valuable record of a soul tamed by God.” Toward the close of the book, he abandons the volume to the care of a young woman. She shares it with her wayward son who finds that it changes his heart. Perhaps that should be the goal of the believing blogger: the charism of being overheard. An old joke says, “Live in such a way that you would not be afraid to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” I would amend it to: Blog in such a way that you would not fear to have your words read by a seeking soul in danger, one whom you may never meet.
I write these words as one more unknown note in the mighty symphony (or cacophony) of the blogosphere. My URL does not appear on big-time blog rolls. No one has contacted me to offer a book deal. Christian universities do not invite me to speak. But I don’t think I need the caffeine of fame (though, quite honestly, I’ll take it if it comes); what I need is the liturgy of writing. And who knows – maybe that is what someone who reads my blog needs as well.•
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After twenty-five years as a pastor, Doug Jackson finally made it to Tarshish as an assistant professor in the Logsdon Seminary program of the South Texas School of Christian Studies in Corpus Christi, where he teaches spiritual formation, pastoral ministry, and Greek. In addition to his teaching, Doug writes “Sermoneutics,” a weekly devotional and sermon-starter blog based on the Revised Common Lectionary: http://sermoneutics2.blogspot.com/.
