In my late teens, it confused me and broke my heart that I found myself enjoying blogs more than books. It was a type of heartbreak that could only be suffered by those who built their idea of self-worth on actively reading books. And I guess you could consider this complex to be part of the origin story of this blog, and my tendency to present blog writing as an artful act. Well I’ve fallen into this tendency again, except now I’m realizing I’m old. And blog writing is not just an artful act, but nostalgic to me.
Before blogs became a form of enterprise building or marketing, they were diaries. But they also weren't diaries. They were livejournals. They were diaries anyone could read as long as you knew the URL or username handle.
I always thought I liked blogs because I liked learning about people's lives. But what I really liked was the approximations of people's lives, which I realized were more like the blurry photos I punished myself for taking, rather than a fly-on-the-wall look into what strangers' do with their time.
In Too Much and Not the Mood, Durga says, "...no writer hopes for ideas to take complete shape" (Chew-Bose 2017, pg. 23). And so do livejournalers.
No blogger wants you to know how events and feelings exactly happened, as a small attempt to hold on to anonymity or at least their ability to say, "I wasn't talking about you", to a suspecting person who knows you in real life (and well enough to even consider asking such a boldfaced question).
I realized that I loved the way people wrote when they blogged because you knew they were releasing everything they felt they couldn't release in everyday conversation, but cryptically - in case certain people were reading. This act of releasing but also holding back, always produced the best writing. The most beautiful sentences that linger with you. Ideas, events, feelings, and visuals you seem to find yourself reflected in or longing for, without any instruction to.
If you wanted to express yourself, but also not give the world digital proof of your problems then you had no choice but to be poetic. And so began a style of writing I was addicted to reading – which seemed to be a hybrid between a poem, a short story, and someone you admire opening up to you about what resonates in them the deepest.
Now this isn't to say that every blogger was capable of writing in this style. Not every blogger chooses to, which is why we have categories for bloggers. But when I discovered someone who was capable, I would constantly click the "older" hyperlink and continue reading until I couldn't anymore. Sometimes it was an angle bracket, or a combination of an angle bracket and two hyphens. Sometimes it was an attempt to express one's cleverness and ingenuity. It appeared in various forms, but I always knew where to click in order to see the post before.
On a lonely day, I would go deep into their archives and start from the first post they ever published and continue until the last post they published - which was usually a good-bye post. Sometimes it was prompted by something sad like illness or something exciting like a creative career opportunity. Sometimes there wasn’t a good-bye post at all so you are forced to wonder, while either looking at a post from 2009 or an error message, where they are now (in cyberspace), and what will bring them back – if they do. Sometimes I’m thinking about them while reading their first published book, basking in the pleasure of being one of those people who recognized their talent a long time ago – like it foolishly mattered.
But even with their book on my shelf, I still catch myself typing their old URLs in the address bar, even though I know it doesn’t work.
Durga says, "Many times, writing that clinches lacks incandescence - the embers have cooled. A need for completeness, can off and on, squander cadence" (Chew-Bose 2017, pg. 23).
Yes it does. And yes it is fun to read a sentence that races ahead of itself (Chew-Bose 2017, pg. 23). I agreed before I even finished reading that sentence, and so would the 11-year-old girl I caught secretly reading a book from the section I've restricted from her age group and those younger. It was always the same book.
"I don't really like stories where they tell you everything that is happening...like, 'Once upon a time....'.
She was struggling to explain, but the fact she was trying to explain charmed me immediately – especially when done crouched behind a spinning book rack.
I wish I didn't guide her just to see what she could come up with, but I interrupted her thinking and asked her if she preferred stories that start in the middle of the action.
Following her silence, I asked her if she liked stories that challenge you to figure out how the characters got there and why.
She said yes.
I told her she can read the book as long as she’s here, but a note from her parents granting her permission is required if she plans to take it home.
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