Writing and honesty

We’re always censoring our language and behavior from everyone, including ourselves; don’t beat yourself up!

I’m hooked, and I only mention it after returning over and over again for the past few weeks. I find your tone, writing, and subject matter refreshing.

The conceit of “truth”, whether in a memoir or a documentary, is always a little slippery. Anyone with any intellectual honesty knows how much their “truth” can be shaped by both inclusion and omission. This does not make memoirists or documentarists liars, or at least it doesn’t have to.

You are truly a beautiful person. As much as you have bared your life and soul in past posts, you have always had one underlying passion… to educate. As titilating as some of the posts have been, you have emphasised truth to oneself, responsablity for ones choices and making educated choices. Not to mention an appreciation for whiskey. I refered a friend of mine to you for advice once and it had a profound effect on her. I thank you for that. Take it as a case in point. If anything, this site oozes truth and heart. As long as you have that, you’ll never be boring. The naysayers can go back to their free porn sites. You rock, and we are all better for it. Thanks again.

People need different things from their blogs. Maybe you used to need this space for catharsis, as a clearinghouse for your thoughts, or just for attention. Nothing in the world wrong with wanting something different now.

Well said. I often have to remind myself, too, that being honest doesn’t mean letting everyone know everything there is to know about me. This post expressed that perfectly.

Yay for growing up and being true to yourself!

You can be honest.

You can be open.

You can be vunerable.

You can be truthful.

However, you don’t have to be stupid. There is no reason not maintain a certain amount of privacy in regard to life’s events and your own feelings.

I am reminded somehow of the “lady of the evening” (to put it delicately) who while giving free rein of her body to clients through the course of the day’s efforts, refrained from kissing them as she found it far too intimate for her tastes and too much an invasion of her personal space.

There is a precarious balance to be found between publicly exposing one’s thoughts and fears and keeping a space for one’s self. It is akin to walking a tightrope in that errors in judgement of too much exposure are just as painful as falling from the tighrope.

Take solace in the fact you are even willing to venture out over the abyss on the tightrope at all rather than chide yourself for your missteps.

Everyone has their limits online. In a “young child” sort of way we enter the internet not knowing the full impact it can have. Sitting behind our computers, in privacy, alone, we feel very protected. The vulnerbility of writing though is quickly learned and we become a bit jaded, just like real life. I think your blog is very honest, very genuine, very connected… leaving some things protected and private, it might even add something that spilling everything else took away. Mystery maybe. Reality. I always enjoy reading, and shall continue to.

In some ways, I think you become more honest by keeping things to yourself. You become more of your own person, instead of someone who belongs to a crowd of anonymous strangers.

This kind of truth telling is a flavor of extreme vulnerability. Your ability to recount, revise, and reinvent is inspiring, and it’s what keeps me doing what I’m doing.

You’re my blogstress heroine. xxoo Cherry

The self-exposure is pretty much how I write in real time and online. There is a huge risk. I take it because I’m seeking people who can relate. I believe that the folks I’m seeking won’t see me and understand how I roll without the information.

In my blog I realize the line I draw is not so much x-ing out all things personal, but I don’t give an itemized account of what I do everyday. Don’t detail everysingle conversation and interaction.

It’s mostly been a place for me put together bits of myself I’m okay showing. It comes across as a lot for some people probably because they show even less.

Everything you’re saying makes sense.

I wanted to let you know that I read the comment you left about my background image. I decided to leave the image because it speaks so strongly for me and for some of the other black wimmin and wimmin of color who have also come visiting the blog.

Hoping you’ll agree with me to just disagree on this point because it is good that you drop by every now and then as I come here.

If you hadn’t seen them, I wanted to draw your attention to two posts I wrote that might be of interest to you. One is called I Feel Excited (http://darkdaughta.blogspot.com/2006/02/ i-feel-excited.html). It contains a short story I wrote a few years back and published in On Our Backs. The other post is called Sex Positive Parenting, ARGH… (http://darkdaughta.blogspot.com/2006/ 03/sex-positive-parenting-argh.html). It’s about me struggling to find some sort of balance between rearing my daughter to have information and a consensual relationship with her own sexual self at four.

I’d like to have your input on this last one especially if you can come take a look.

I’m finding your writing and your blog site in general to be truly inspirational.

It’s true that honesty doesn’t need to mean all information all the time. You have to let yourself process it and some information is really just fleeting thoughts that lead you to what is really important. You put yourself out there as much as you feel comfortable. It’s really up to you to decide who you are.

No matter how much time passes you’ll always be evolving into the person you really are. Accepting that is being true to yourself.

You are honest. You’re just not opening wide a door into your soul, inviting people to come in and look around. And you shouldn’t have to.

hugs

i think too that it’s always important to remember that unless we write about ourselves solely, we are always talking about someone else. someone who may not want to have their private moments made public. i remember a breakup with a girl who had a livejournal and i remember how awful and nasty it was BECAUSE we were both so public about things. the wisest thing you can know is when too much is too much. in the end, YOU have to live with what you write, but you also have to make sure anyone else you mention is ok with it too. someone with as much insight as you have will always have something to say, or to teach, and we’ll always be here to learn. - chris

I’ve been reading your blog for over a year now and something I’ve really enjoyed is the evolution of your writing and of the blog itself (being a sum of its posts rather than just the latest post etc..). I understand why you took those posts down and while I support the link-integrity that Rebecca Blood outlines, I also support challenges to the ‘rules’ of a genre etc… So I think it’s honest of you to make the changes you want to make. I also think it’s honest of you to write as you feel is right for you at a particular time, rather than being coralled by what you feel your readers expect or want from you. Honesty isn’t just baring all, it’s being yourself and it’s perfectly reasonable that much as the person you feel you are now has changed, the way you write/what you write about might also change. Your writing is awesome and I’m thrilled for you that your work has taken off in so many exciting directions since you started this blog. Heartbreak is a tough one but that too changes. The very very best of luck and much admiration. Gxx

Hey, you’re discovering where your boundaries are in this area. Nothing wrong with boundaries, nothing wrong with you choosing where yours are, nothing to apologise for.