I. Am. Writer.

On By LynnIn TurtleHead

I’m being featured again on Five Star Friday this week, and holy cow, that is SO AWESOME. I don’t know who you are, you who keeps submitting my blog posts (I totally suspect Amy), but I LOVE YOU.

I’ve been blogging for quite a long time, as far as blogs go. I started my blog in spring 2004, more than five years ago. And before that, I had my own website where I wrote entertainment commentary and chatted about actors and reviewed movies, and I started that site in November of 1998.

So this month, it’s been eleven years that I’ve had some sort of online presence. Eleven years of self-publishing.

You’d think after all this time I’d have done something with it, no?

I still struggle with my goals here. I know feel compelled to write — I often have a running blog post going in my head while I’m actually supposed to be living life — so I really need a place to vomit it all out.

And I like having a record of the past — sometimes when I am looking for an old blog post, I get reading my own blog and I just can’t stop. Every post is a little memory, and it makes me smile. I love that I have so much text that documents my kids’ early years, and my own self at this time.

And I’ve really come to value being part of an online community. I’ve built real friendships with other bloggers and I feel like I’m a member of a community, that I have ladies and gentlemen who reflect back at me my own life, my own experiences, through a lens that helps me understand myself and have a good laugh at it all.

And that’s all good. Most of the time, I’m happy with my little corner of the internet.

But sometimes I get a little nagging voice in the back of my head that says I should do more with my writing. A voice that says I should be more by now — more famous, more rich, more accomplished. I should get out there and market my pieces, I should turn them into a book, I should find ways to grow my audience.

Then a little voice on the other shoulder reminds me that there are a million blogs, literally, in North America alone. And it brings up all the amazing books I’ve read this past year and all the incredible screenplays I’ve seen produced and all the awesome blog posts that were read out loud at BlogHer and I think, who’d want to listen to what I have to say? Who cares about one more voice in the cacophony?

And then, one of my blog posts gets featured on Five Star Friday, and I squeal inside.

And the dream of being something more flickers, alive again in the very back recesses of my brain.

Maybe someday…, it says.

Thanks.

8 thoughts on “I. Am. Writer.”

  1. You know, I follow a lot of blogs. I try to read all of them as often as I can, but Sometimes life gets busy and my Google reader fills up to a point that I just can’t catch up with everything that I’ve missed. When that happens, there is a handful of blogs that I make sure I read before I reset everything by hitting the “mark all as read” button. You’re blog is definitely on that list of ones I make sure I’ve read.

    You’re a good writer, Lynn, and I love the way you take the everyday things that go on in your life and find manage to write about them in a way that makes them seem not so everyday.

    I totally know what you mean about the tug-of-war that goes on between the side of you that’s content to have a small little corner of the Internet and the side of you that wants more. On the one hand, I don’t want to deal with the ads, or potentially nasty comments, or higher expectations that seem to come with having a larger audience. On the other hand, it feels so good to have people come and comment and say they like what I have to say. We bloggers…we’re complex like that. 😉

    1. I feel the same about your blog! When I’m miles behind and there are a million posts, I always go to you and SmotherMother and FameThrowa first :).

      I feel exactly the same way about my blog. Oh to be famous and rich…but oh, what a hassle. Someday I’ll sort it all out :).

  2. I totally hear you. I haven’t even been blogging for a year yet, and part of me wishes I’d started much sooner, for the running record of my kids’ earlier years alone. I couldn’t even get past those ‘there are a million blog’ voices to start a measly blog, let alone try for anything further (and the cute-ass things my kids used to say every single day would have made NaBloPoMo a f***ing breeze, a BREEZE I tell you). If you don’t end up with a book deal or anything that makes you richer and famous-er, it’s not because you’re not a great writer. It’s luck and timing and (er, being Canadian) and the fact that you’re worried more about being a great Mom right now. And occasionally ending up on five-star Friday.

  3. Really nicely said, Lynn. Have you been listening to the voices in my head too? 😉 There are a lot of blogs out there, but what makes yours stand out, IMHO, are three things: first, you have a unique voice that comes through in your writing. Second, you’re passionate about what you’re writing about, and that makes your writing compelling. Third, you are simply talented — you write well. Don’t shush those voices, not the one that inspires you and tantalizes you with “some day, maybe” nor the one that keeps us all entertained!

  4. Sometimes I’ll stumble onto a blog that someone has linked to or re-tweeted on Twitter, take a look around, think “meh”, then notice their Followers or Readers/Subscribers numbers are in THE THOUSANDS and think, “WTH??”. How can so many people read and swoon over this drivel?? Maybe I’m just biased towards some of our local talent, but I consider you and Kym and Dani to be AMAZING writers.

    I don’t understand how some of these others can have amassed such huge followings. Is it the giveaways? Have they just been doing it forever? What gives? I’ll read some blogs and think, “There’s two minutes of my life I’ll never get back…”.

    I have no idea how many readers you have, Lynn, but I don’t see 100s of comments on each post -like on other, lesser blogs- but I think there should be. You ARE a writer. And a good one at that.

    (I can’t take credit for all the FSF features. You are clearly loved by more than me!)

  5. What a load off my mind to know I am not the only one who goes back to read her own posts.

    As far as being accomplished goes, I think you’re already there. Mary Lynn is right. Your blog is the one out maybe three in my Google Reader where I actually want to read every post.

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