Please Please Me

This is the audience participation part of this program. I need your help. I am trying to guage what other people relate to or enjoy about my blog or what yeilds strong emotion of any kind - bad good offended what have you. You know I don't care if you tell me you hate something. I care; but I don't take it personally. I appreciate your honesty just like I think you appreciate mine. I know what my favorite blogs are to write. And I know which are the hardest for me to read. There are some that bring me to tears. There are some that annoy me. There are others that I think are half-assed attempts which no amount of editing could cure. And some in which the words build off of each other so perfectly, the subject matter is secondary. But I am coming at this from a different perspective than you all are. I read and I think, "wow ... did I really go through all that? Did that really happen to me?" And sometimes, "I am not that girl. I don't know who she is but I cannot relate to her at all." And other times, "cringe cringe cringe, what awful awful writing." And other times, "well crafted, Briana, bravo." But you are all reading from different angles than I am. Some of you are my friends and have watched from by my side as my world was torpedoed and watched me float on air on my 30th birthday. That gives you a certain perspective. Some of you enjoy seeing yourselves pictured by me. And some of you see the art.

I had an epiphany in reading Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicolas and Micah Sparks. Reading that book gave me some of what I've been looking for in structuring my book. I had been planning a Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs type style and structure and organization but now realize that I can do better than that, rather my particular brand of writing lends itself better to Three Weeks With My Brother. In that book, Nicolas and Micah, brothers, go on a three week trip around the world as adults. In doing so, they reminisce and the book goes back and forth from past to present and there are black and white photos interspersed throughout. In that book the chapters are separated according to where they are on their around the world journey. I am not sure yet how to separate my chapters. I was thinking of my illness - the present tense - being the guiding force and the chapters being months starting with August. The progress of the illness and the evolution of my relationship with the illness caused me to better and/or differently approach events in my life and that is where I look back at the past with the perspective of the present. Oddly and coincidentally, my sister has many pictures on her flickr page (check her out at: www.flickr.com/photos/jilliane ) that are on point with some of my blogs and that's where the pictures would come it. I see my book as akin to a photo album. It will all be moments. Just like my blog consists of moments. Moments of epiphany. Moments of heartache. Moments of frustration. Moments of victory. Moments of joy. And so on. Like a photo album, sometimes the same event is written about from different perspectives like a picture of the same tree can be taken from different angles but each one tells its own story despite the fact that it is a picture of something I've already written about.

I don't know how many of you are interested in the craft of writing or would care to know my take on which are the easiest to write, which flowed for me the best, my favorite sentences I have ever written, how true the blog is and how I perceive it but I am going to tell you anyway. As usual, I would love your feedback on these subjects. The feedback I have received thus far has been interesting and educational and invaluable for me (C.Small enjoys the ones about body image, like Brilliant Disguise, Beautiful Stranger and What it Feels Like For a Girl, Alpha Taurus doesn't enjoy the philosophical ones, he likes the rants, the blonde one didn't go over so well with my brother, AC liked Like a Virgin and Shiver, BE and A often tell me they can't comment because the blog is so intense they don't want to undermine its power - but that leaves me with no information HINT HINT) Often the blogs I thought nothing of are the ones that touch people and the ones that I poured my heart out in inspire nary a comment. That intrigues me. I am writing for me but I am writing for you and I want to know where you are so I can ascertain where we connect. I want to represent you in some way. I want to express what you cannot. I want to write about the human condition because I believe we all go through the same things and have the same emotions. My father always says, "what do you have to write about, you're so young, you have nothing to say." And I disagree. We've all got stories. More often than not they are same ones with different identifying details. My mother poo poos me with, "most writers don't write their first book until way after 30," maybe so but I have written enough pages in my life to fill 10 books. I just never did the editing and organizing required to make any of it into a book. But it is time now.

My favorite blogs are the ones that pour out of me with tears streaming out of my face. They are the ones that are the most honest. They write themselves. A recent example is Don't Leave Me This Way or Oh Father and Shiver or Dear Momma. Older examples are Can't Stand Losing You and I am a Rock I am an Island, Happy Birthday, Because of You, Don't Let Me Get Me , Freak Like Me, Strong Enough and Back In Baby's Arms and Look What You've Done. Those are the ones that I read and still make me cry. Then there are the ones that are perfectly crafted in their simplicity. Back Like That, Kiss Me On My Neck, Buckets of Rain, Alright and A Deeper Shade of Soul, Have You Ever Needed Someone, 8 Million Stories, Beast of Burden and Brilliant Disguise . (Disclaimer: Some I always love and hate, but I am not going to tell you which ones I hate, and some I flip flop about.) My favorite paragraph I have ever written appears in I Throw My Toys Around, a blog about my mother. It is:

"We couldn't be more different and this has been troubling for me for as long as I can remember. I have curves where my mother has angles. I am a 36D where she is a 32A. My mother's body fits her personality; nothing is wasted; everything she has is necessary. Meanwhile everything about my body is whipped cream. For all my womanly curves, I miscarried twins and my mother gave birth to three children. If she is right, then I am wrong. If she is a woman then what am I?"

Regarding their accuracy, they are borne of epiphanies, conversations, realizations and represent a moment of thought. They do not represent an ongoing crusade. I am not in the same place twice and although there are things I do harp on my relationship with said subject it has evolved from the last time I mentioned it. So they are all true when I write them. The other characters may disagree. But this is how I see things. Remember that. As to the craft, besides the blogs that pour out of me and I can't edit because I would compromise their rawness, I straddle a fine line between art and fact. I want the perfect word. I want the cool word. I want to play around with style. But I still want it to feel true. And sometimes that takes time. And sometimes I sacrifice one for the other. Am I succeeding in that goal? I don't know. But I got 110 views yesterday before I closed down for the night, so I know you're reading and in doing so, you must have some thoughts.

So help me out guys. Email me. My Space email me. Comment. Tell me whatcha like. Whatcha don't like. What you think I'm writing about anyway? I lose myself in myself and can't see the forest for the trees. What the hell have I been trying to say all these months?? I have no fucking clue. I am waist deep in it. Answer me that and I will take the winner out for burgers and beers.