Blogs and the Decline of the Private Journal: A Case Study of One

I have feared that blogging–I have to reiterate that I hate the word but using any other seems forced–would cut into time for what Leo Lerman calls "writing that illuminates," meaning fiction, personal essay, memoir, and other crafted personal writing. That has not proved to be true. I'm working on two books worth of material and started a new story this week.  I have rationalized that blogging simply takes the place  of the letters and  literary journalism which have always been a part of writers' lives.   That is also probably true.  But what I did not expect was that blogging would decimate my private journal writing. And that feels like a loss. Of course, a part of me thinks, "you're a middle-aged man; your self is not a work in progress as it was in your adolescence. The point of your life now is not to continue to sculpt a self but to be useful to others." And my essential self does feel solid. I basically know what I value and know what I want.  But just as it is with manuscripts, just when you think you're done, there's always another revision: a new set of possibilities, a new bucket of fears. When faced with these inevitable changes–parents failing, your own eventual obsolescence becoming less abstract–there is a kind of forgiveness, and thus a kind of freedom, that  only a truly private journal offers.. I miss that and I think I'll be making some time to get back to more private writing.   

Comments

[amy]

You know, I think about this a lot, too. I think maybe blogging has changed the way I write in my journal in that I write less about general thoughts on writing and reading, the kind of thing I write about on my blog. Now I save just the really boring stuff for my journal, stuff that I'm 100% sure no one cares about but future-me -- literally, what I ate (why?), what I did when, movies I saw, things I read (listed), what's going on with things I am writing, who I saw and what they said, why I am annoyed with this or that. That's probably what will always stay in my private journals -- the unrestrained bitching. Well, in my journals and in my dinner conversation with my long-suffering husband.

[Mandy]

Try googling makwagis in Cairo!

Also, look up Amy's book on amazon! You can pre-order it!

[K]

Cool. I just ordered Amy's book. In your case, it looks like Google did exactly what it's supposed to do.