That’s what “friends” filters are for…

Somehow, every time I tell someone new about this blog, I seem to go into a period of not being able to post to it. Recently I told my oldest friend about it and sent him the url – then immediately no desire to write. Or no will to write or no ability to write. I think that if people listed “writer’s block” in their interests, it would probably be one of the top connections everyone has.

To look at the stalled writing thing: If I was examining this from the outside, I’d say that my reluctance stems from a fear of rejection (oh no there’s another person in the audience now). LJ deals with that by providing filters to chop your audience down to a manageable size. But my problem is lying somewhere beyond that:the feeling that if I don’t turn in well crafted little essays here , like those of the posters I admire, I’m not really doing it.

(response pre-empt: I know I should just do it come what may, and that what ever I post is fine)

And yet it’s not fine. There is reflection and then there is reflection. There is the recounting of the day’s events, the blurting of moods, and then there is the the use of writing as a way to make something of those moods and events. I feel like I’m not allowing myself to do the latter. I make faint efforts, but no more.

I’d like to do it differently, to provide something here that more approaches real content, something that helps me think.

0 Comments +

  1. I share your feelings. There is an element of exposure to this venue. I don’t just mean that psychologically, either. I suppose it has to do with lurkers and the insistent fear that one’s not-yet-fully-formed ideas might be used as the means by which you are judged. On reflection, my drama of December (with the school newspaper) has left me feeling that way. I know my journal is about process and exchange, but the expectation is that all my public work will be fully formed and mature. That’s not helpful to me and, indeed, I am relying on filters to allow myself space for growth without fear of negative-nannies gossiping about me.

    So much for my experiments in transparency (at least for a few more weeks), but my mental health is more important right now than my other artistic goals.

  2. I share your feelings. There is an element of exposure to this venue. I don’t just mean that psychologically, either. I suppose it has to do with lurkers and the insistent fear that one’s not-yet-fully-formed ideas might be used as the means by which you are judged. On reflection, my drama of December (with the school newspaper) has left me feeling that way. I know my journal is about process and exchange, but the expectation is that all my public work will be fully formed and mature. That’s not helpful to me and, indeed, I am relying on filters to allow myself space for growth without fear of negative-nannies gossiping about me.

    So much for my experiments in transparency (at least for a few more weeks), but my mental health is more important right now than my other artistic goals.

  3. Sadly, these “doubt about the endeavor” postings are just about as bad as memes: “Which species of self absorbed ljer are you?”

    What does it mean that I want to become a bum just so I can move to LA and fight other bums in front of you?

  4. Sadly, these “doubt about the endeavor” postings are just about as bad as memes: “Which species of self absorbed ljer are you?”

    What does it mean that I want to become a bum just so I can move to LA and fight other bums in front of you?

  5. In the past year I’ve crept away from writing thoughtful posts and instead only posting artwork and spewing the occasional bout of emotional diarrhea. I wish I wrote more and I’m aware this is probably giving people a skewed impression of me.

    I’d pick you in a bum fight.

  6. In the past year I’ve crept away from writing thoughtful posts and instead only posting artwork and spewing the occasional bout of emotional diarrhea. I wish I wrote more and I’m aware this is probably giving people a skewed impression of me.

    I’d pick you in a bum fight.

  7. I often get the feeling that what we learn in school – especially in the earliest years – reenforces ideas that have no currency in the real world. Like the idea that one must “turn in well crafted little essays”. The result is a kind of neurosis where we are constantly trying to please some abstract authority figure that does not actually exist.

    That may be the source of a lot of inhibition and procrastination – there is a disconnect between the methods we were taught, the rewards we were given, and the goals we want to achieve today.

  8. I often get the feeling that what we learn in school – especially in the earliest years – reenforces ideas that have no currency in the real world. Like the idea that one must “turn in well crafted little essays”. The result is a kind of neurosis where we are constantly trying to please some abstract authority figure that does not actually exist.

    That may be the source of a lot of inhibition and procrastination – there is a disconnect between the methods we were taught, the rewards we were given, and the goals we want to achieve today.

  9. well – I guess for me – (in pondering your entry during a stroll across campus this morning) – it comes back to the question of:

    Are you writing the journal for yourself – or are you writing for an audience?

    I personally approach my journal as a barometer and a indiscriminate snapshot of me in the written word- often bare – but my entries flap back and forth from recipes and songs of the week to issues i’m working on (Cosmo’s February issue is fabulous btw ). I have friends that say to me “how can you be so out there on your journal”. Why? because I’m that out there in real life. It isn’t a skewed view of who I am – because who I represent in my journal is who I am everyday.

    Sometimes I’ll write things and the most remarkable string of comments will begin (somewhat due to the esoteric friends list I have). For instance. Back in January – I posted about being lost in the stories and legends of a particular Indian tribe I was researching. (post) and the comments took off in a whole new direction discussing how the world might have turned out had these tribal cultures become dominant in the world rather than Anglo Saxon tribes. It was refreshing – and nurtured my mind.

    You are a remarkably sensitive person – and perhaps I’m lacking in the sensitivity of how my blog might appear to a new reader when in the span of a week I discuss multiculturalism, cum fetishes and chicken mole salads. (laughing) But honestly, I don’t tend to keep people close to me that can’t “get” that rather naturally. 🙂

  10. well – I guess for me – (in pondering your entry during a stroll across campus this morning) – it comes back to the question of:

    Are you writing the journal for yourself – or are you writing for an audience?

    I personally approach my journal as a barometer and a indiscriminate snapshot of me in the written word- often bare – but my entries flap back and forth from recipes and songs of the week to issues i’m working on (Cosmo’s February issue is fabulous btw ). I have friends that say to me “how can you be so out there on your journal”. Why? because I’m that out there in real life. It isn’t a skewed view of who I am – because who I represent in my journal is who I am everyday.

    Sometimes I’ll write things and the most remarkable string of comments will begin (somewhat due to the esoteric friends list I have). For instance. Back in January – I posted about being lost in the stories and legends of a particular Indian tribe I was researching. (post) and the comments took off in a whole new direction discussing how the world might have turned out had these tribal cultures become dominant in the world rather than Anglo Saxon tribes. It was refreshing – and nurtured my mind.

    You are a remarkably sensitive person – and perhaps I’m lacking in the sensitivity of how my blog might appear to a new reader when in the span of a week I discuss multiculturalism, cum fetishes and chicken mole salads. (laughing) But honestly, I don’t tend to keep people close to me that can’t “get” that rather naturally. 🙂

  11. good point. I’m not sure it’s even that evolved for me right now. I think I’m hyper-aware of the number of people who are frustrated and lost in the world — and know that some folks watch me and wait to use my words, my work as a weapon for their aims. I know I’m being cynical (and self-conscious, narcissistic, etc) in naming my concerns. There’s a delicate question of audience imbedded in all of this. While I know I am writing for more people than myself, I’m also jealous of my need to write for myself.

  12. good point. I’m not sure it’s even that evolved for me right now. I think I’m hyper-aware of the number of people who are frustrated and lost in the world — and know that some folks watch me and wait to use my words, my work as a weapon for their aims. I know I’m being cynical (and self-conscious, narcissistic, etc) in naming my concerns. There’s a delicate question of audience imbedded in all of this. While I know I am writing for more people than myself, I’m also jealous of my need to write for myself.

  13. Thanks for being you! HUGS

    As kind of a “lurker” about your journal I appreciate the open way you share what you are doing and thinking. There is a kind of a voyeuristic enjoyment that comes from reading another persons journal especially if that person has good stories to tell and interesting things to share and a bit in common with your journal voyeurs and friends. Yes it takes a bit of ego strength to be able to put your innermost thoughts out for the world to see, but there is nothing wrong with that. Share what you want and be assured that some people will really enjoy what you have to share and maybe some others won’t be interested, but the ones who do read will gain from the act and those that respond help to develop the conversations that help shape us in both big and little ways as we learn from each other.

    Anyhow, I just wanted to say that appreciate what you have shared with people you haven’t ever met and hope you will continue to do so in your open and sincere style. You have added to the amount of good in my world and I thank you.

    Hmm why do I feel like I should just have written: “Thanks for being you! HUGS”

  14. Thanks for being you! HUGS

    As kind of a “lurker” about your journal I appreciate the open way you share what you are doing and thinking. There is a kind of a voyeuristic enjoyment that comes from reading another persons journal especially if that person has good stories to tell and interesting things to share and a bit in common with your journal voyeurs and friends. Yes it takes a bit of ego strength to be able to put your innermost thoughts out for the world to see, but there is nothing wrong with that. Share what you want and be assured that some people will really enjoy what you have to share and maybe some others won’t be interested, but the ones who do read will gain from the act and those that respond help to develop the conversations that help shape us in both big and little ways as we learn from each other.

    Anyhow, I just wanted to say that appreciate what you have shared with people you haven’t ever met and hope you will continue to do so in your open and sincere style. You have added to the amount of good in my world and I thank you.

    Hmm why do I feel like I should just have written: “Thanks for being you! HUGS”

  15. >>What does it mean that I want to become a bum just so I can move to LA and fight other bums in front of you?

    This sounds like the perfect scenario for a porno starring you and .

    Food for thought, indeed…

  16. >>What does it mean that I want to become a bum just so I can move to LA and fight other bums in front of you?

    This sounds like the perfect scenario for a porno starring you and .

    Food for thought, indeed…

  17. For me, writer’s block is not so much about rejection – although as you know that figures into it as well – as the fear of being seen. I didn’t write for years and years, even though it’s always been the best thing I do. I’m sure that when we knew each other in SF, you didn’t know I wrote – because of course I wasn’t. Writing exposed too much of me. I still have problems with this, though now mostly outbalanced by a desire to actually hone my skills and craft. (Oh, good god, did I just type that?)

    But LJ is a whole different thing. I haven’t resolved the public/private nature of online journaling, and tend to blurt or write really inane things. On the other hand, I do enjoy using it as a forum, as I’ve been doing lately, to delve into my feelings about writing/publishing, especially knowing that several of my friends are writers. Well, I pretend that they are interested anyway.

    For me, LJ is increasingly a place to be experimental and think “out loud,” and for that reason, I try not to worry too much about content – or an audience. It’s a place to practice turning off the critic in my head.

    xoLP

  18. For me, writer’s block is not so much about rejection – although as you know that figures into it as well – as the fear of being seen. I didn’t write for years and years, even though it’s always been the best thing I do. I’m sure that when we knew each other in SF, you didn’t know I wrote – because of course I wasn’t. Writing exposed too much of me. I still have problems with this, though now mostly outbalanced by a desire to actually hone my skills and craft. (Oh, good god, did I just type that?)

    But LJ is a whole different thing. I haven’t resolved the public/private nature of online journaling, and tend to blurt or write really inane things. On the other hand, I do enjoy using it as a forum, as I’ve been doing lately, to delve into my feelings about writing/publishing, especially knowing that several of my friends are writers. Well, I pretend that they are interested anyway.

    For me, LJ is increasingly a place to be experimental and think “out loud,” and for that reason, I try not to worry too much about content – or an audience. It’s a place to practice turning off the critic in my head.

    xoLP

  19. So often my cursor hovers over the “Comment” button on your posts, my finger inclined to click. Several times I have even opened a little comment box and then closed it without writing anything. [This is true of some of the other journalers I read, as well.] Why? I am frequently stimulated by what you say, but I don’t have the concentration or talent, or maybe just the time, to translate my impulse to agree or question or challenge into actual words. So I am extremely sympathetic to your sense of how hard it is to move from the seeming banality of reportage to the seeming depth of analysis or “creation”.

    Ironically, I think a case could be made that those who do turn out “well crafted little essays” aren’t really doing it. I won’t claim to write such things myself, but I admit that sometimes when I am writing, it becomes a performance that has more to do with entertaining or impressing an audience than with solving that harder problem of writing “real content.”

    Having said all that, though, I want to speak in favour of the idea that what you (and I and others) write here is real content. In a comment Clarkelane talks about the fear of being judged by one’s not-yet-fully-formed ideas. But I think we are all judged on that basis, all the time, and the judgements are often positive ones. This is especially true, I think, of the judgements of the people we invite into our journals, or who happen along to them and see things to keep them coming back.

  20. So often my cursor hovers over the “Comment” button on your posts, my finger inclined to click. Several times I have even opened a little comment box and then closed it without writing anything. [This is true of some of the other journalers I read, as well.] Why? I am frequently stimulated by what you say, but I don’t have the concentration or talent, or maybe just the time, to translate my impulse to agree or question or challenge into actual words. So I am extremely sympathetic to your sense of how hard it is to move from the seeming banality of reportage to the seeming depth of analysis or “creation”.

    Ironically, I think a case could be made that those who do turn out “well crafted little essays” aren’t really doing it. I won’t claim to write such things myself, but I admit that sometimes when I am writing, it becomes a performance that has more to do with entertaining or impressing an audience than with solving that harder problem of writing “real content.”

    Having said all that, though, I want to speak in favour of the idea that what you (and I and others) write here is real content. In a comment Clarkelane talks about the fear of being judged by one’s not-yet-fully-formed ideas. But I think we are all judged on that basis, all the time, and the judgements are often positive ones. This is especially true, I think, of the judgements of the people we invite into our journals, or who happen along to them and see things to keep them coming back.

  21. Nayland, dear, your minions love to wander and suffer from time to time. When you reappear, there they are to adore you, or your smoke, or just the scent you may have left behind.

    One can always recycle. is off being creative in another medium. While he’s away, we though you would enjoy some of his classic works on the rise and fall of Marjorie Kemp. — ed.

    … and just how old is your oldest friend? Strange, English.

  22. Nayland, dear, your minions love to wander and suffer from time to time. When you reappear, there they are to adore you, or your smoke, or just the scent you may have left behind.

    One can always recycle. is off being creative in another medium. While he’s away, we though you would enjoy some of his classic works on the rise and fall of Marjorie Kemp. — ed.

    … and just how old is your oldest friend? Strange, English.

  23. just some of my thoughts about engagement

    in my experiences, i’ve found livejournal participants to be much more voyeuristic in nature, than actually willing to engage in discussion and honest thought with each other (which i think is bizarre, especially for being such an impersonal means of communication – one would really expect the opposite response). i think a lot of that has to do with the heightened pressure of how we know exactly whose ‘friends’ pages they’re going to end up on.

    but on another note, i’m in the middle of reading your different light book right now. i enjoy it immensely so far – particularly the inclusion of the sheet of plywood under the ‘drag’ section. so wonderful.

  24. just some of my thoughts about engagement

    in my experiences, i’ve found livejournal participants to be much more voyeuristic in nature, than actually willing to engage in discussion and honest thought with each other (which i think is bizarre, especially for being such an impersonal means of communication – one would really expect the opposite response). i think a lot of that has to do with the heightened pressure of how we know exactly whose ‘friends’ pages they’re going to end up on.

    but on another note, i’m in the middle of reading your different light book right now. i enjoy it immensely so far – particularly the inclusion of the sheet of plywood under the ‘drag’ section. so wonderful.

  25. Think of the journal as a notebook as well? A place for materials, unfinished recordings, stretches toward the periodic finished piece?

    The finished brilliance alongside the articles of field research?

  26. Think of the journal as a notebook as well? A place for materials, unfinished recordings, stretches toward the periodic finished piece?

    The finished brilliance alongside the articles of field research?

  27. Your hesitation is pretty common.
    While I’m quite conscious of my audience when I post, I write mainly for me. Most of the time, I use my conversational voice. LJ is interactive, and this seems the most natural. It also helps to minimize the self-conscousness that makes writing so stilted. is right about always being conscious of that spectral authority figure, the grammar police, the judging of your words, and by extension, your very self.
    In some ways, I feel that this forum is much like the salons that Gertrude Stein and Alice held in the last century. People gather to bare their brains, share ideas and feelings, and glean wisdom and insight from the interaction. It may take the form of a journal, but it can be so much more.

    So, when I post, I’m aware of the others, but I try to put forward my ideas as I might as if they were there. Essays aside, this is a wonderful place to hone these skills that can so easily atrophy if neglected. So, I allow myself to wax poetic, and play with the language. It’s supposed to be fun!
    Of course, there are times when I go off the deep end, but I expect it would be the same if my audience were not virtual. They’d just roll their eyes and mutter, “Rave on, o wonder of the ages!”

  28. Your hesitation is pretty common.
    While I’m quite conscious of my audience when I post, I write mainly for me. Most of the time, I use my conversational voice. LJ is interactive, and this seems the most natural. It also helps to minimize the self-conscousness that makes writing so stilted. is right about always being conscious of that spectral authority figure, the grammar police, the judging of your words, and by extension, your very self.
    In some ways, I feel that this forum is much like the salons that Gertrude Stein and Alice held in the last century. People gather to bare their brains, share ideas and feelings, and glean wisdom and insight from the interaction. It may take the form of a journal, but it can be so much more.

    So, when I post, I’m aware of the others, but I try to put forward my ideas as I might as if they were there. Essays aside, this is a wonderful place to hone these skills that can so easily atrophy if neglected. So, I allow myself to wax poetic, and play with the language. It’s supposed to be fun!
    Of course, there are times when I go off the deep end, but I expect it would be the same if my audience were not virtual. They’d just roll their eyes and mutter, “Rave on, o wonder of the ages!”

  29. I know exactly. One of the reasons I do SuperTan is the whoel blur of fact/truth/fiction and society. Anyway. It is so easier to blur my daily events with the fantastic life of a supertan shemale. This journal is much harder to write as I am trying it straight on. I am finding how boring that is. I love your journal.

  30. I know exactly. One of the reasons I do SuperTan is the whoel blur of fact/truth/fiction and society. Anyway. It is so easier to blur my daily events with the fantastic life of a supertan shemale. This journal is much harder to write as I am trying it straight on. I am finding how boring that is. I love your journal.

  31. Sadly, these “doubt about the endeavor” postings are just about as bad as memes: “Which species of self absorbed ljer are you?”

    What does it mean that I want to become a bum just so I can move to LA and fight other bums in front of you?

  32. but instead of using my friend’s filter how i’ve surmised it should be used…

    …i will just be neurotic in a clear and expressive way that lets me breathe a sigh of relief
    …….. and rest assured that the comments i receive will give me a forum and structure for the real content i enjoy providing

    -{shoulder punch}-

  33. but instead of using my friend’s filter how i’ve surmised it should be used…

    …i will just be neurotic in a clear and expressive way that lets me breathe a sigh of relief
    …….. and rest assured that the comments i receive will give me a forum and structure for the real content i enjoy providing

    -{shoulder punch}-

  34. friends filters

    I understand the ‘turmoil’ of it all. I figure, I leave postings for anyone to read, for the sake of it all. Figure you never know what person out there might get something from it all, or them later in touch with you to your own benefit. I often make little mention of myself at play, or sometimes use rather esoteric terms because the post is out to all. Perhaps that is one thing I should stew about personally.

  35. friends filters

    I understand the ‘turmoil’ of it all. I figure, I leave postings for anyone to read, for the sake of it all. Figure you never know what person out there might get something from it all, or them later in touch with you to your own benefit. I often make little mention of myself at play, or sometimes use rather esoteric terms because the post is out to all. Perhaps that is one thing I should stew about personally.

  36. Clang, clang, clang went the trolley

    Hatebeak, or maybe Suffocation?

    I just read about them last night in the context of a really cool and intelligent piece about Judy Garland. :0)

  37. Clang, clang, clang went the trolley

    Hatebeak, or maybe Suffocation?

    I just read about them last night in the context of a really cool and intelligent piece about Judy Garland. :0)

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