CT Bloggers

I checked out Coffey0072 (http://www.coffeerhetoric.blogspot.com), one of our CT bloggers and found she is a really apt and eloquent writer, who mostly makes comments about her personal life, often her love life, and shares her musings about hooking up and relationships with her readers. Actually, many of these pieces seem quite lengthy for a blog. I could imagine her musings as articles in Cosmo, for example. Her vocabulary is very sophisticated, and she seems to occasionally write for some magazine, too.

She seems analytic about herself: "I am the quintessial shit talker and most of the time it's justified. I'm direct and I'm honest, but I'm also guarded and leery. She knows exactly what her blog will be like, and she's also quite confident about the value of her writing, perhaps less surprising if we consider that she has written for a longer time now, thus had time to develop her style and maybe get some feedback from friends: "I think now that I am ready to make the web masses privy what goes on in my head. All of it is worthwhile and thought provoking. Some of it might be a little profane and perverse. My mind run 'round and 'round liek a colorful mobius strip... none of the geometrical shapes ever really making any sense, but it's good shit nevertheless! ... Fasten your seatbelts. This voyage inside my head may be turbulent, but it will be funnier than hell!"

I figure it will always be the escribitionists, that is the online diarists whose blogs I will enjoy reading most. I've been keeping mine for a month now, and just began wondering why I am really doing it and what I want to get out of it. That's why I took interest in reading what Coffey0072 has to say about her motives. She explains her drive in a lengthy explanation that is to start off her blog.

She's journaled extensively for some time writing about "people I hate, people who get on my nerves, how much sex I'd like to be having, crazy dreams I've had, etc etc." I am surprised that what she writes in her blog is kind of the same. I imagine people keep a personal diary to keep track either of their everyday lives or their spiritual lives. Her blog is neither, she wants to entertain herself and now her readers, and she seems to take it as a literary experiment: "This is one of the literary forms that I enjoy partaking in the most." But also, blog journaling is liberating to her, "like taking a massive shit. You feel a sense of relief  ... Journaling allows you to expend that feeling.... the anger, the lust, the happiness, the joy etc etc. You can fucking trash people without having to deal with the drama you'd be bothered with, if you were to curse someone to their face."

But can't that all be gotten rid of in a private journal? I think no, because having an audience listen to what she has to say is different. Writing for an audience your prime purpose is to entertain, to give something valuable to them. Almost one year later, having an established circle of readers, she suggests the importance of sharing and having an audience: Firstly, I must oblige by thanking the core group of people who read my blog semi-regularly. I started blogging not because I wanted 30 or more comments on my page, but because, it is a way for me to just write when I hit a creative writing snag. I was told by a writing professor that the best way to get through writer's block is to write. Initially, I would just write in your standard private journal, but in going back and reading some of the things I wrote, some of the people and sets of circumstances I encountered, I would snicker... actually wanting to share some of my dirty laundry

I believe blog journallers appreciate having an audience, because they enable them to break out from isolation, and transform their life to be viewed as interesting through an act of publishing it. Having no one ever read and comment on your blog, on your life, you're a failure as a blogger. Maybe I'm taking this too far, but I sometimes think that an online diarist needs a faithful, interested audience to help them believe their life is worthwhile and unique, they need people who care about them. Coffey0072 confides that: "... while my goal is not to be the most popular blogger- and I am thrilled that people have actually discovered it and have left their feedback- I have stumbled upon this great community of like-minds, and you all have been gracious enough to show interest in the trials, travails, and tribulations known as my life. Thanks. I love your blogs in return. May blogs be the 21th century tool of fighting alienation for some?