When I conceived of building a weblog and taking up "blogging" I had some notions about how that would work. Watch out!
I had a notion that it could work like "team memory" in that others (notably friends and family) would chip in with feedback and comments, some critical, that would fuel the process and make the effort a creative community of sorts, and enhance the accuracy of the stories told. So far that hasn't happened; which is of course because I haven't figured out how to cultivate feedback and comments. I can see that there are many blogs that characteristically have that limitation - and there are many still visible blogs that appear to have died on the vine; they have not been posted to in months or years. The bottom line is, I think, that receiving no feedback increases the content of self (absorption?), and decreases the amount of material and ideas about which to blog.
I (there's that word again) had a notion that I would not like the self absorption element of blogging. I was correct. The 1983 movie "The Big Chill" is considered to be the ultimate 1980's baby boomer movie and includes smashing music and acting. The story tells about a few days in the mid-life of old friends who were school mates in Ann Arbor, and who have gathered at a country church at Beaufort, South Carolina for the funeral of a dear friend who has taken his own life. There is a brief conversation among 3 of the men as to whether the ultimate act of self absorption is suicide or auto-eroticism (not the word they used). But that was before Facebook and blogging came along. I don't need anything in my life to make me more self absorbed so I have some work to do.
I had a notion that family stories could be told (together). I did not have the notion that more and more folk are turned off by the internet. Turned off by the incessant noise and the tsunami of totally bogus stuff and by the very real security threats; turned off such that they really don't care to winnow the wheat and the chaff, and that they consequently more and more refuse to click on a link to anything. There are some who are using the Boston Marathon Bombing story as an illustration that those who can read would have been better served to read the Times or the Globe each day and never turn on anything electric.
I had a notion that writers get up every morning and write for three hours - and then do whatever else needs to be done with a focus on social activities (face to face live in person), correspondence, and reading (hard copy). Well, there you go again. I do have some work to do.
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If you would like to see my collection of Carolina Lowcountry memories—"Magnolia Elegy: Place In the Edisto Fork," you can view the book trailer here, and see the book page here on the publisher's website. The book is also available from Amazon, B&N, and your independent local bookseller.
