Goodbye Maybe

Why write? I’ve accidentally become woven into a writer’s community on twitter and I feel illegitimate. As they discuss WIP (work in progress), MC (main character), plot lines, unplanned turns of events, perspctives, querying, getting agents, publishing the latest book, etc., I’m thinking blog, blogger, topics, followers, and likes or comments. These two worlds do not lend themselves to the idea of common creative writing skills. Those folks sound like “real” writers. I’m not completing novels and laboring to get them published. Currently, I have no desire to restart my own efforts with my book, Charmed.

So all this has got me thinking about my “writing.” Am I a writer or did I surrender that identity when I shelved my WIP? (Maybe I’ll feel more like a writer if I use the correct lingo.) Does it make a difference that I’ve been blogging regularly for over two years? The next rabbithole is one where we consider, ‘What is a blog?’ To qualify as a blog, is average word count taken into account? Could I write one word and call it a blog? Then publish a blog daily, each containing one word, different words or same word? Would that be considered a piece of art? I could do that, but I’m not sure that would make me a blogger or an artist.

Most blog posts I read are much longer than mine. It seems most blogs have a theme rather than writing about whatever springs to mind, as I do. The number of followers I have is more than I thought I’d have; and I don’t mind including the commercial blog sites that follow everyone in order to get their product out into the marketplace. Although I’m pleasantly surprised by how many “followers” I have, and even moreso the regular readers who’ve stuck with me and a few with whom I’ve interacted, I don’t have thousands of people checking in on my missives. It’s practically a diary with a few extra readers, too.

This view of my creative productivity leads me to a sense of flogging a dead horse, a gruesome depiction of which Dostoyevsky provides in Crime and Punishment. That’s not my goal with SurvivingSara. Two-and-a-half years of blog posts primarily about life, love, and family have not substantially increased in views or likes, even as the number of followers has. Much thanks go to Ashley Peterson, Tubley001, …

Nevermind. I just went into my list of users to make sure I got Tubley’s numbers (001) correct and I saw many people, real people, have signed up for notifications when I publish. If people are still interested in taking a look, I’ll continue to write. I am in quite a mood today, so I probably should pay myself no mind. My apologies for dragging readers through my angsty perturbations. I still don’t know if I’m a real writer, though.

p.s. As previously promised, now that I decided to keep blogging, I will soon report how my big weekend away from home went. Lots to say about that.