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Writing About Myself

September 8, 2010 By

In my efforts to improve my writing and keep my blog relevant to the subject of ME, I recently stumbled across the idea of memoir writing. Memoirs. That made perfect sense to me, since on a personal blog we write about ourselves, our lives, and other things that interest us. Using the term “memoir” doesn’t mean that we have to reach back far into the past to come up with something to write about.

I was at the bookstore last weekend and picked up Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg. I flipped through it in the store and bought it with the intention that it would give me ideas on what to write about. After I got the book home, I started with the introduction, since it is titled “Read This Introduction”. In one of the last paragraphs, I saw one of the most perfect sentences about writing.

Writing is the act of reaching across the abyss of isolation to share and reflect.

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? These memories are in our minds, and we write to share them with the world. I can’t think of a better way to describe what we do, whether we fancy ourselves writers or just bloggers.

For those that need simpler prompts, there is also this book: The Book of Myself A Do-It-Yourself Autobiography In 201 Questions. I picked it up years ago but I don’t think I wrote much in it. I know it’s around somewhere, so I’ll have to dig it out as it will be a great way to reflect and provide inspiration for more blog posts.

That’s the approach I’ve been trying to take on my blog lately, writing in a memoir style rather than boring you with the details of my daily life. What do you think? Do you incorporate memoir-style posts or do you just blog about your daily life? Why?

Filed Under: Reading and Writing

Blogged Out

September 6, 2010 By

A little over a week ago, I spent a large part of my weekend in front of the computer. I like to have a weekend every now and again that involves nothing but planned computer time – it’s a nice way for me to relax without having to worry about being anywhere or wearing myself out with social obligations. As the weekend wore on, I tweeted that I was getting blogged out.

I didn’t expect a reply, but @thatgrrl replied, “Don’t let your blog defeat you! lol Write about what blogged out means. Show that blog who’s boss!”

Not quite what I meant – it’s hard to convey exactly how you feel in 140 characters. I meant that I even though I had planned to spend the weekend surfing the net, I was tired and needed a nap and blogs just weren’t doing enough to keep me awake. But she did give me a great idea for a blog post.

With anything we do, not just blogging, I think we’re all susceptible to burnout, no matter how long we’ve been at it. It’s just mentioned more in the blogosphere because that’s what bloggers do. The key is knowing how to avoid it.

I read a few great posts over the weekend about this very topic. ProBlogger’s Avoid Blogger Burnout – 5 Tips to Save Your Sanity is geared towards the pros and wanna-be pros, but the tips can very easily apply to personal bloggers. The SITS Girls 10 Blogging Pitfalls You Should Avoid also covers some ways to keep the balance in your life to avoid becoming a slave to your blog.

Over the past few months, as I’ve gotten back into the blogging habit, I developed some ways to avoid getting blogged out:

  • I schedule posts in advance of their posting date. This way I can have some new stuff planned and not worry about life getting in the way, or I can take time to just read what everyone else is writing. And while I’ve been ahead of the curve lately, I don’t worry about writing all my posts at once. I write them as they come, and it’s been enough lately that I’m constantly one step ahead.
  • I’m sticking to a 3 post per week schedule, M-W-F for the most part. It’s somewhat flexible, so I can write on the fly or write a special post that for whatever reason can’t be scheduled on M-W-F, it allows for fairly evenly spaced posts so that something new comes out approximately every other day, and it’s not so often that I have trouble coming up with something new.
  • I realized recently that writing before I sit down to read means that I produce better, more coherent posts, and I get them done faster. If I can remember to do that on a more regular basis, then writing won’t seem like such a chore.
  • I know my limits. When I’ve had enough of the blogosphere for the time being, I step away from the computer. My blog doesn’t suffer from it – on the contrary, it helps my blog because it keeps my mind refreshed.
  • I keep a notebook of ideas next to my computer so that I always have a source of inspiration.
  • I don’t worry about stats, comments, or other metrics. Seeing lots of visitors on our blogs is exciting, and getting lots of comments is even more fun, but I don’t worry about it too much. I enjoy writing and having my own space in the blogosphere, which is what drew me to blogging in the first place. The rest of that stuff is just icing on the cake.
  • I always make sure I’m having fun. I never want blogging to feel like an obligation – that goes for writing my blog and reading your blogs.

Have you ever been blogged out? What do you do to overcome it?

Filed Under: Personal Blogging

Feeling Human

September 3, 2010 By

A couple of months ago I told you all about my tendency to become another person entirely when Aunt Flo rolls around. I compared myself to Jekyll and Hyde. My hormones surge and I turn into a raging bitch, and the very minute I start bleeding, I’m back to being my sweet, lovable self. I told you how I was sick of it and revealed my decision to try taking Zoloft to tame the beast.

It seems to be working.

It’s been about two months now, and I’m approaching my second visit from Aunt Flo – she should arrive any day now. Mister and I have not had any arguments since I started taking it, and only one dish has lost its life, but that was an unfortunate accident due to my clumsiness. I don’t hate Mister anymore when I’m getting ready to bleed – I just don’t like him at times. (I really do love my husband, but Aunt Flo tries to convince me otherwise.)

I feel like I can handle things as they come. For example, this week was pretty stressful at work, as the changing of the calendar is when you work in finance. Other than shoveling chocolate into my face at warp speed, I feel fine and don’t feel the rage coming on. After I’ve removed myself from the stress, I start feeling normal once I’ve had a chance to decompress. Yesterday I felt my ability to think come to a screeching halt about a half hour before my work day ended. Once I got home and had a chance to breathe, I felt better and wanted to interact with the internets rather than curl up with a blanket and stare mindlessly at the TV.

I do feel a tiny bit numb, but not so much that it affects my ability to do anything. I’d much rather have that than the hormonal roller coaster, because at least it’s a lot steadier.

Also? In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been blogging a lot more over the past two months than I have been for the past few years. I feel like something has awakened in me that has me wanting to flex my creative and intellectual muscles, and I think it’s been showing on my blog. I’ve been enjoying feeling like I want to blog again.

So far, I think the Zoloft is magic in a tiny pill. I’m sure I’ll still have my ups and downs, but I feel like they’ll be gently rolling hills rather than jagged, unforgiving mountains.

I like feeling human again.

Filed Under: Health

Encyclopedia of Me – N is for Name

September 1, 2010 By

I’m finding that as I get further along in this series, all the obvious choices for certain letters have already been addressed in past posts. For K, I could have written about my name, but I have a post from 2006 titled K is for Kirsten (which really has nothing to do with my name), and as I was preparing for the next few posts in this series, I got stuck on the letter R when I realized that I had already written about me being a redhead, so I went over every entry in the R section of my dictionary to find something.

But for N, I figured that even though I already had a post with an obvious title, I have never really talked about my name. Here you go.

My name is Kirsten, and I’m a blogaholic.

Sorry, wrong group.

My name really is Kirsten. It’s pronounced “curse-tin” and not “keerstin”. It’s not Kristen, Kristine, Kristina, or Karsten. It’s KIRSTEN. Get it? Also, I don’t have any nicknames, so please don’t call me Kirsty or any other shortened version of my name. Only Melissa can get away with that, but she can also beat me up, despite being much smaller than I am.

I got this name because my mom wanted a Scandinavian name for me, since her grandparents came from Sweden. I was the only Kirsten I knew of, and just like my hair, I didn’t really like anything about me that stood out. I would rather have had a traditional name, like Elizabeth. I thought that would have suited me more.

My middle name, Linnea, is also Swedish. It’s my middle name, my mom’s first name, my Grandma’s middle name, and my great-grandma’s first name. Since I’m the 4th one in a row to have this name, it’s where the 4 comes in on my user name, KirstenL4W.

These days, I’m used to my name. I don’t have any feelings either way about my name, but I would prefer that people get it right. I do like knowing that if I hear my name in a crowd, there’s a pretty good chance that someone is calling me. There were 3 Jennifers in my 4th grade class, and I don’t think I would have liked having a name that common.

I do love my online name. I chose KirstenL4W in a flash of brilliance one day when trying to choose a username for Yahoo mail. My previous email, at excite.com, was getting wonky, and I didn’t really like kmylast1 as a username (mylast being my actual last name at the time). KirstenL4W seems to have a bit more oomph. Another bonus was that no matter where I went, I didn’t have any issues with it being taken already, so chances are if you are on a website and come across a user named KirstenL4W, it’s me. It hasn’t failed me yet.

Naturally, when I looked to getting my own domain name, I picked KirstenL4W. It’s my online identity. I love it for its personal meaning, and I love it because it’s unique. It’s not Kirsten12345 or some other random series of numbers because the other 2821865 name/number combinations were taken. It’s all me.

Filed Under: Encyclopedia of Me