In love...
As I finished my blog last night, I came up with an idea to think of better ways to write and communicate what I'm thinking. How effective would it be to put myself in the shoes of a 'reader?' I started coming up with all sorts of ideas and avenues of thought to help me understand the mindset of someone who reads and what they might get out of it. Some people like short stories to escape the real world for a while, some like to read for research or insight into another point of view, some read simply for fun. Some people read for reasons I will never understand. As I started to drift off to sleep some very vivid pictures came to mind. I can't explain them in words quite yet but whatever these things were that I was seeing, I was falling in love with.
My writing sucks. It's very biased and for what it's worth, very self centered. The technical aspect leaves much to be desired and none of my writings would be of any worth in an academic realm. I can barely tell a good story. Sometimes I'll vomit up some cynically funny story about sex or stupidity or weird social anomalies, but for the most part, it's really the same old story from me.
Though I write it's for myself, I'm really writing for the reader. All I can really do is base my worth on the number of 'likes' or comments I get and can barely assume that people enjoy it by the statistics I see on the back end of wordpress. Given my desire to not commercialize this particular aspect of my life, I am very pleased with the 'return on investment' for my time. After several hundred thousands of words this year, I'm glad I did this.
I do this because I want to fall in love with the reader. Though I feel I may never achieve it totally, I want to fall in love with the idea that what I do is in fact not for my own personal gain. The minuscule enjoyment that people may get out of reading these weird little posts may be a signal to me to change the way I think about success in my life.
If I could come up with a better way to convey my feelings about things (in a way that is socially acceptable), I'd feel quite a bit more content. For now, Here's my story...