Today I Appreciate Blogs

O.K., it probably seems silly that I've started and re-started this blog a million times with the same lackluster apologies for laziness in writing, but after reading a few of my friends' blogs and generally procrastinating from the task that is graduate school research and GRE studying, I felt inspired to sit down and write something myself. So, here I am sitting and writing in this old project of a blog that emerged after a year of feeling generally down about life.

A lot changes in a year. Duh, right? But Fourth of July came and went this weekend and it made me weepy and nostalgic and reflective. I think all holidays have the power to do this to me, to make me look back on the year I just experienced and think about what has changed and what I could have done differently and what I wished I would have done to improve my life and who I am. Blogs, really, are a funny format in which to do that. The most successful blogs are kind of a combination of snippy writing, multimedia clips, and a sense of the breezy, a conveyance of ideas that are serious but not TOO serious. Too serious would mean significant reflection and time, not the kind of ADD flitting from tab-to-tab and page-to-page that so characterizes the way I spend my Internet time (and I assume most people's Internet time, right? Right?).

Blogs are funny, too, for their inherent narcissism. Before I became absorbed in the world of nonfiction writing, I always found memoir and life-writing in general to be sort of a cop-out from fiction writing. I have a distinct memory of sitting down to write fiction at a summer program in Iowa and the fiction gradually turning into something that more closely resembled my own life. I remember thinking then, "Gosh, Jenae, can you really not get away from your own boring life? Can you really not escape from this experience of ME, ME, ME?"

This weekend, too, I spent time at my boyfriend's family's house and my boyfriend's father came into the room sharing that the newest piece of fiction in "The New Yorker" is based on the elementary/middle school that my boyfriend and his sister attended. Amazingly, I happened to have the newest "New Yorker" in my purse (I tend to carry some reading material with me everywhere) and so he (my boyfriend's father, that is) read the story out loud. Throughout the story, my boyfriend's family members were totally amazed (e.g. "This IS our school!" "Who do you think that's supposed to be in the story?" "This is barely fiction!").

I think, in a way, they were all sort of miffed out how close this story was to reality. Indeed, it seemed bizarre to imagine fictional characters in a place that was so tangibly real, that was so ingrained in their memories and such an integral part of their past. But it was their reflections upon how close this story was to real life that made me realize and reflect again upon the power of our own experiences to inform our fiction. The latest "New Yorker" story just showed me that yes, true life can be a cop-out in that we remain in our narcissistic shells of a universe, but that true life can also create the most colorful, enhancing, and enticing background to themes and ideas that could not be conveyed otherwise.

Besides, this life is what we've got, so we should just get over ourselves and deal with it, right?

So, back to the blogs. They inspire me. They're not Henry James, but the era of the novel as ground-breaking art is really... over. In a way. Not that the power of fiction will ever completely deteriorate, but SO MANY interesting things are being done with nonfiction (like blogs! like media convergence! like good ol' plain writing in print publications!), it's hard not to be drawn into seeing how this... genre in a way keeps evolving. O.K., I've probably been reading too much Reality Hunger , and like author David Shields, I'm thinking that the "era of nonfiction" is upon us (not to mention my complete and utter absorption in everything CNF for... over a year now, I think?). I think what inspires me most is knowing that as we are trapped in our narcissistic bubbles of existence, at least we can see that everyone else is similarly trapped in those worlds.

However, through sharing these kinds of reflections, THAT's when we escape the sense of narcissism. THAT's when we come to see that that which seems so individual and so isolated is actually something shared. Hence, when we recognize ourselves in others' writing, in others' art (if you will and if that big "A" word doesn't get you too nervous), THAT's when we know that writing is effective.

Anyway, no promises on keeping this up, but I'm now a college graduate and I'm finding myself (already) desperate for critical thought again and inspiring books and people to sustain me. Wish me luck, and thanks to those of you who already write and keep me inspired with your online writing and otherwise. You make me realize that in spite of all of my uncertainty about my future, about what my post-college life will mean (whether that's grad school or something else), I know that out there, there is someone who inevitably feels almost the same way.

Today I Appreciate You

Yearly, I planned to keep some sort of journal. Fancy notebooks with floral print covers and neat, lined pages remain the only partially-filled testaments to my attempts at “practicing” writing and attempting to be a “good writer.” Every “how to be a writer” book I read told me that the best writers keep journals, so that’s what I tried to do: keep a journal.

I sparingly wrote in those journals, however, because I lacked meaningful purpose for writing in them. I only occasionally wrote because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do if you had any love of language. Alas, the entries fell into the trap of “I hate mom,” “I hate dad,” and “I hate mom AND dad” and, thus, became my platform for complaining rather than for observation. That’s not to say that complaining doesn’t have its place in literature, but it shouldn’t be the predominant emotion driving one’s work.

As Robert Root writes in The Nonfictionist’s Guide, a writer needs “a sense of commitment to the subject matter, a sense of involvement that is not simply a desire to communicate something but is instead – or in addition – a willingness to discover and accommodate whatever emerges from the writing” (26). Basically, if you have a goal in mind and you want to communicate, go and do it, but expect to learn something from the process, too.

So, this project is really twofold: I expect to not only learn a little about my life experiences by reflecting upon them in an optimistic way, but also to discover something about what it means to be appreciate what you have and through this appreciation, to become a happier, fuller, healthier person.

Today, then, I appreciate you, whoever you are, reading this beginning. You are probably among only a few who have either a.) been referred here by me, b.) stumbled upon this by accident or c.) are my family (who fall under the subcategory of a., but whatever). Happiness can only be achieved with the help of others. It’s impossible to be a complete lonely misanthrope, sulking through life incapable of finding love and appreciation from others. After all, many write to be immortal; words transcend life and being.

So, why do you need to be involved in this? Well, writing for me is a wholly beneficial process and I could easily keep this tucked away in a hidden folder, but I’m only compelled – really compelled – to write this if I know someone out there cares or is affected by anything here. That’s cliché (and, boy, do I hate that it’s cliché), but clichés exist because they are so firmly based in truth. I write this, these observations, these thoughts, these desires to share, because I wish to stir something in you. It doesn’t really matter what.

After all, it’s impossible to communicate until you discover something you need to communicate. For me, I need to communicate what brings me levity, what brings me hope, and what brings me inspiration because, without that reflection and without that understanding, it’s impossible to really appreciate and love what’s open and available in the world.