Sept. 26, 2001
I have written many journal entries for this site. They’re sitting tucked away on my hard drive in such a disheveled fashion. There are the basic .txt files, the slightly modified .doc files and the almost but not quite done .html files.
I don’t, however, have any complete ones to share. I’ve been trying really hard to finish them, and I think that’s my problem.
When I first started this site is was with such basic, naive intentions. I just wanted to share in a really simple quick way what I was feeling, doing or going through with regards to my evolution as a writer.
And that was enough.
However, a couple of months ago my site was recognized with an award and within two days I had over 50,000 hits – not the normal 500 or so per day I usually get. And with all those hits came a lot of email.
While a lot were supportive, a lot were very critical, especially of my grammar. I didn’t want to write articles and perfectly articulated pieces in my journal entries because they were supposed to be as honest and as real as possible. But because I had received so much email about my poor grammar, I thought perhaps these strangers were right, and I should change my format.
So I did.
I started to work really hard at language and punctuation. I double checked my nouns and verbs and made sure it all made sense.
Also, around this time I started to get a floor of email from people who encouraged what I was doing. They’d tell me how they wish they could do it, how they’d follow me through my journey or they hoped I would find success with this somehow.
I started to feel pressure to be inspiring and achieve some kind of success. I felt I was not only living out my dream for myself, but for all those other people who couldn’t. That was a very heavy load to bare, and I started to crumble slightly. But I felt I had carry it because I had some kind of duty. That lead me to no longer write how I was feeling but instead to write how I thought I should be feeling.
So I didn’t write that one day I was so inspired and creative and the next day there was nothing coming out of my brain. Instead I wrote about only the good things that were going on and tried to focus solely on those. I didn’t want people to think that if I was having troubles that they would too. I didn’t want to come off as unsure anymore. I felt I had to be inspiring and “on” all the time, even if I was the complete opposite that day. I felt I had to have uplifting endings to all my entries, even if there wasn’t one. I became more guarded of what I was going to say. I thought I had to write like a writer in my journal, instead of the simple girl without all the answers who simply writes.
Between grammar and trying to come across as collected, I went from spending 10 minutes per entry to over an hour or two. And the thing is, I was less satisfied with the more effort I put into it.
With an article, grammar and intention is extremely important, and spending time working on those and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting is something that is just part of the game. But for my journal entries here, I think that’s a very bad approach.
I have to just let it come out here. It has to be simple because that’s the only way I can really convey what’s going on with me and my writing. The journey is what’s important – not the punctuation.