Hey You Out There

I was talking with my friend at Micwriter about this new writing venue, the blog, with which so many of our students are probably very familiar. For many of them, I don't think questions arise regarding "how should I talk?" or "how much should I divulge?" Not that this indicates a failing, but rather a comfort level with a venue that is perceived as being, perhaps, an extension of conversations with their friends.

For me, however, and for micwriter, it seems that we understand (and are controlled by?) conventions all too well--an academic paper for a presentation is generally (aside from nerdy academic humor) rather serious and predictable. Emails can be breezy, but even then, whether they appear on personal or university servers, one might be less or more aware of and attentive to content. Creative writing has its various conventions, whether poetry or fiction, and so forth. So what conventions should be honored in this venue? Especially as an exercise that will often touch on academic issues, how casual can it be? What about one's personal life can/should be divulged? I found myself self-editing for cues that might give away personal identifiers or disclosures, such as references to the university I work at that might reveal its location, or word choices that could reveal that I am, gasp!, a human being with a normal range of emotions and activities. Disclosure #1: I failed to identify the "gentleman" I mentioned in my first post as a man I'm currently dating (actually, I went back and omitted reference to "my beau"). Why? Lots of reasons, probably, including: superstition (put in writing that one is dating and suddenly the situation blows up in one's face; that's why I've resisted for so long putting this man's phone number in my phone list, for example); convention (I work occasionally with this man; what happens if others find out? will it create strange tensions? I tend to avoid not only situations where there's a conflict of interest, but those that give rise to the appearance of a conflict of interest. So am I breaking my own "rules"? And at what peril?); word choice problems (when I looked up "beau" I found this means not only boyfriend, but dandy and fop--not the guy I'm dating for sure, but then what to call an adult male, not boy, one sees and likes but doesn't live with nor have any contractual relationship with?); and my astrological sign (okay, I'm a Capricorn, and as you can see, we are WAY too serious about too many things).

I think this revelation has served to remind myself and perhaps horrified others about how much--too much?--thought can go into how and what we write. This is called (take notes, students) audience awareness. It's a good thing, but geesh, I'm thinking it can be a real pain as well. Of course, the other element is that there is a very limited audience for this blog, I'm sure: i.e., the people to whom I've told this exists. So it sounds presumptuous that I'm even concerned a larger audience might exist for this. That whole notion of presumption, ego, reasons for divulging suggests that an exegesis on purpose may be in order. But I'll save that for a later post, as the attention of my limited audience may be waning. I know mine is.