Living on the Green Edge

The role of this blog is…Part II

12 May 2012 4 Comments

by Tiffany A. Turbin Santos in Goals, Health Stuff, Writing Tags: anxiety, bipolar, children, clients, connection, conversion, creative nonfiction, creativity, education, engagement, essays, Facebook, freelancing, health care, kitchen-sink, kittens, local business, mental health, multitasking, my cat, Neil Gaiman, panic, psychosis, stress management, support, teaching, workshop, writing

The word multitasking originated in 1966, referring exclusively to computers and their computations. Automation of tasks to make the human life that much easier. But in 1998, the word started being applied to humans.  On the surface, it might sound like a good thing: do more in less time with less effort.

But really, as a modern concept I think it sucks.

Because we got the do more part, and maybe even the less time part, but the effort feels like it has tripled.

And with my recent run of near-crippling anxiety attacks, I lack the math skills to compute my effort to do even simple tasks. Say good-bye to my days of multitasking.

I don’t want to work full-time, volunteer full-time, and part-time, and be a graduate student, and be creative on deadline, both personally and professionally, all while pretending I’m not desperately lonely and need a social life that does not include an agenda.

My day yesterday was perfect: I woke up naturally around 11am, cuddled with the kitties, met a friend for lunch, played with kittens at The Book Center (10 are ready for adoption), went to Southern States to look at flowers, played with my cats at home, did some light house work, talked to my sister on the phone, and wrote this blog.

No stress, no panic attacks, minimal hallucinations (I’ve started actually keeping track of that, too).

But also no work, no grading, no deadlines, no bullshit.

Which brings me to my point–dun, Dun, DUN–what the heck am I doing talking about all this in a public forum?

First of all, thanks to everyone who posted comments on Part I.

I’ve mulled this over for a while, and I realized this blog has had a bit of a multiple personality disorder (not a current diagnosis of mine). Or rather, I’ve tried to multitask. Maybe it is because I’m lazy. Or confused. I’m confused often. But I blame that on being born in the Year of the Monkey.

The way I see it, I have three reasons for writing a blog:

First–Personal: I am going through a major life shift wherein I am trying to truly deal with my health, all facets of it, in a more mature, responsible way rather than simply running away when it gets too scary or uncomfortable.

To do this effectively, I need to write about it. But I have a difficult time holding myself to personal deadlines (just look at the state of my website, some of those pages have been “Under Construction” for three years). I need to write everyday. That is how I cope best because I am a writer.

I also need personal connection and resources to support myself during this shift. My closest friends live literally hours (if not several time zones) away. And I’m crap at calling (phone anxiety, though my besties are kind enough to call me). Besides, the type of support I need is too much for a single person, or trio of persons, to deal with. And while some of my dearest friends have a pretty good understanding of some of my issues, I really need to connect with people who can say “been there, swallowed that.”

Hence a personal blog is a major priority for me now.

Second–Creative: If you look back at some of my first posts, this blog was intended to be a creative outlet. While I have always written poetry, I originally planned to study creative non-fiction, particularly the personal memoir essay.

This makes sense as an author for me now as well because most of my poetry is pulled, at least is a small way, from events in my life or experience. Even the themes in my fiction can be linked to personal obsessions, which is true for all writers. So writing about things that are superficially personal would be a way to build a platform for my work, laying the foundation for a book later on.

While this has some appeal, I am far too overwhelmed to do this consistently. The energy that goes into churning out a 1,000 word essay of literary quality every week, let alone every day which is my current timetable, is astronomical for me. I am a slow writer and an even slower composer. I feel for now, this option is an impossibility.

Third–Professional: Finally, there is the professional blog. This is where statistics come into play.

The standard advice is to pick a niche you are passionate about (or can at least fake a healthy interest in) and then you blog regularly about it in hope that eventually you get enough hits to attract the interest of advertisers.

Alternately, you can create a following surrounding your small business service to attract customers, with the idea that you give enough advice/service/copy away for free to attract attention and a warm fuzzy feeling (engagement) until some of those hits turn into paying clients (conversion). This is also where most writers get the advice to be writers writing about writing in the hopes of getting writing jobs.

When I think about this, I alternate between feelings of resistance and panic.

I don’t want to!

Not only does that sound deadly dull, I also have to admit that I can’t force myself to read those types of blogs (even when they are written by writers I like with the possible exception go Neil Gaiman). And if I have zero interest in reading them, should I really be adding to the glut? I mean, not all of them are totally spammy. But most of them are hardly original.

And how am I expected to blog about freelance writing in an original way? I guess my post about teaching the kids’ workshop comes close, but realistically, I’m not going to pick up new freelance clients that way.

Most of my freelance writing jobs fall into one of two categories: marketing or manuscript. Those people are looking for people with solid reputations for quality and efficiency, which means they ask around. They don’t troll blogs.

So the roll of this blog is….Personal.

I am going to keep it linked to my author’s page on Facebook, my website, and various other online profiles and what-have-yous.

And if that costs me some freelance clients, so be it. I mean, if they turned down a freelancer in a wheelchair, we’d all think they were assholes, right? So let’s treat mental health issues the same way.

Yes, I have health problems, but I am still a damn good writer.

And very modest, too.