Radio Silence: How to Write Publicly When All of Your Journeys are Private
I’m a surprisingly private person.
I’ve only started realizing that recently. This may come as news to you, given that I’m blurting this out in a decidedly public medium and have blurted out all sorts of revealing bits and pieces about myself over the past three years that this blog has been alive, and in the decade before that when entire days were noted in great detail on my old Livejournal blog (mirrored here using a slightly more user friendly interface).
It seems, however, that I’ve got very clear boundaries between what I’m willing to let out of my head and what will stay locked up inside. For the past few months, everything that has been going on has been the latter. How can you write about place, about travel, about exploration, when most of the action has either been wholly inside your own head or way too private to blurt out to the world?
Aside from approximately two or three mops and a rough draft of a Wok With Me Baby post about roasted pumpkin parathas (which are fabulous, by the way), I’ve not written anything since I arrived in Bali nearly a month and a half ago and announced my intention to write all about it.
Seminyak! Ubud! Nusa Lembongan! So much one could write about 3 weeks in Bali…
Hell, I took a cooking class in Ubud and carefully documented the preparation of every dish with the intention of publishing a Balinese cooking series: tempeh, satays, spicy green beans, tuna steamed in banana leaf.
I took notes on the seaweed farms and tidal patterns of Nusa Lembongan.
My camera is filled with hundreds of photos that I have yet to even upload to my computer let alone publish. In my head, I composed long, witty, thoughtful paragraphs about things I’d observed, places I’d been. I sent out a mad flurry of selective, detailed photos on Instagram, carefully not referring to anything that happened or to anyone involved.
But still, nothing was written here.
Remember when I wrote about memory and context? Remember how I noted that so much of memory is created, cemented and revised simply by having written about it? And how sometimes it all gets altered and reshaped through hyperbole and omission? The phrase I always use for this is Christmas In London, where what I wrote about for my friends and family (Christmas lights on Oxford Street! Carols! Pretty!) was radically different (but not exactly untrue) from my actual reality (heartbroken, cold, miserable, sick).
I wasn’t ready to craft a Christmas In London level of omission so I wrote nothing at all.
Nothing.
And it’s not for lack of things to write about.
It has been a momentously life altering season with huge shifts in geography, both internal and external. Everything that was true in January is now completely different: job, flat, private life. Rug pulled out from under all of them.
There has been plenty to write about but nothing I actually wanted to write about or was prepared to write about or felt comfortable with making public. And I still don’t. So I’m not going to.
And I’m very aware that these vague allusions to Things That Happened But I Won’t Tell You What They Are make for really crappy blog posts. Places I visited (oh, hey, remember that Bali series of posts that never happened?) and thoughts I had (many, and all quite mad and new and conflicting) have all been too inextricably linked to the Things That Happened to discuss in any detail here, without giving it all away.
At first I thought my Public Sphere Writer’s Block was temporary: a by-product of all my inner tumult, a desire to keep inner upheavals private in order to heal and rebuild in a safe and gentle place. I couldn’t even articulate it in a private journal. Words were lacking. Words felt clunky and insufficient. There was way too much going on. Difficult, painful, life-rearranging stuff.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t document anything. For two months.
See what I’ve done here? I’ve written hundreds of words without actually telling you anything other than the fact that stuff happened and that I didn’t feel like I could write about it.
I am going to publish this post to reintroduce myself to my blog, to you all, to reopen the dialogue of the comments section, to quietly reset the compass to find north again (it has moved, significantly).
Maybe now I can start writing about Shanghai again. I’m certainly seeing it from a radically new perspective, one worth exploring. I’m just not going to talk about everything I failed to talk about up until now. I hope you’re comfortable with such blatant omission.
I shall now resume my extensive hyperbole.
Hello, Shanghai! It’s certainly interesting to be back…
I know the feeling, I know it all too well. There is so much I could write about and share but instead I’m choosing to post mindless stuff on Weibo and share interesting links on of stuff I’ve read on Twitter. Some things need to be faced without being written about, I think.
You’re totally right about that. I actually found it hard for a while just posting the light and fluffy things on FB and Twitter… I wanted to just lay low and retreat and be invisible.
Yes. Of course. I mean, aint it swell? The silence.
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Silence is golden.
Just bec you blog doesn’t mean you should, or are expected or required to, tell everything. I sure don’t.
I’m betting readers come back bec they enjoy the writer and the writing (and some are also friends) – even when it’s about not writing at all.
Hope you’re doing fine and everything is well.
Thanks, Robyn. I’m doing better now, after a few months of upheaval and heavy thinking. It was a necessary but not easy change and I think I’m on a better path now. Still licking my wounds a bit. Here’s to more inspired writing in the coming months…
MaryAnne,
I sympathize with your situation. I find writing to overwhelm me at times. I question my motives and the content I produce. In the end it’s a completely personal endevour. If the words don’t flow freely onto your keyboard then you’ve not reached a conclusion or resolution on the subject.
Sometimes silence is louder than any words.
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Thanks. Like you noted, I do question my motives behind what I choose to write and publish. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to make public, and sometimes your gut just tells you directly when to stay silent. This has been one of those times…
Well, I, for one, am happy to have you back on the Internets. Welcome back. I look forward to your future exagerations.
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Hyperbole is my middle name.
Hey! No need for excuses just because of that bit of blog-wise omission. Sometimes the right amount of privacy is important. Muting the shouts into virtual world can be a good thing, all the more true when real world suddenly turns upside-down and forces your to find new perspectives, to rethink your whereabouts, to leave or break relationships. I guess it’s hard enough to recalculate values in your life, so don’t bother about what others may like to know about it or how long they’ll wait for another post here before they loose interest.
You feel the urge to post about what’s going on but are too exhausted, frustrated, and it also feels altogether like a rather bad idea? Most certainly that’s because giving too much of yourself away to the hungry hordes of the Internet actually is a bad idea – even if that means to miss a few reassuring virtual hugs from out there (which are attached here, of course :-).
However, you’re writing a post about what you want to write about but can’t write about just to make sure your readers know there’s something they’d be curious to read about if only you could write about it, but you can’t and… Hm. Some might say that’s a bit irritating… 🙂 Seriously: if you’ll ever write about what’s been going on I’d prefer it in retroperspective, with distance, in a post created rather with humor in the background than with frustration and inevitable vulnerability. Until that day, not writing about it, not writing at all or write about why you’re write nothing is quite likely the safer decision. I also think your quite good in writing “between the lines” (a German term, not sure if there’s the same in English). So maybe you say already more than you believe with all these yummy photos, woks and mops… 🙂
Hope you’re OK and everything will turn out fine. Chin up!
Martin
Thanks, Martin! I’m aiming for less irritating posts in the future… just had to get this out of my system, preparing for a fresher start!
This is the kind of post we love you for! Healing takes time(usually more than we would like it to) and one has to surrender to it. So don’t beat yourself up for not posting and accept that it is a time where renewal happens in the dark. Time of letting go of the old and making space for new better things to come. You will see that eventually it will simmer up in ways never imagined before 🙂
Thank you! That means a lot to me. I’m giving myself time to retreat, heal, lick my wounds and return at my own pace. I’m relieved that you guys are all still out there.
Check out my blog. You will know immediately that I relate. I have written whole novels in my head…letters to my _______, but but but sometimes sharing is just too much. Sometimes reliving “the moment” is just too much re-living.
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You’re exactly correct there. All those unwritten pieces in my head, all those posts, those novels…
Maryanne, I can so relate. February was a rough month for me too, and it’s hard sometimes to have the motivation to get out if bed, let alone blog. And that other comment is right, just because we put ourselves out their on our respective blogs doesn’t mean we have to reveal every last detail, but I think you sound like me in that you feel like you’re not being authentic if you’re sugar coating the truth, so you stay quiet. I totally get that, and have sort of done the same! I’ve been composing a post in my head for about a month now… Still deciding if its stuff I want to share…
Take care, and I hope things are on the upward swing!
I’m sorry you had such a crappy month too! I’m starting to see that this February has been one of upheaval for a lot of people– more than usual. How odd! The year of the snake has been working its fierce, skin-shedding magic on many. Hopefully we can emerge renewed and revitalized and just plain better.
And you’re right about the issue of authenticity. I have a hard time with telling only half the story, with too much omission, with leaving out keys contextual details. I couldn’t write about Bali because everything during those 3 weeks was coloured by what happened. Major amounts of untangling and tidying up and emotional Photoshopping would be required before I could publish anything about it.
Are you feeling better now? I think I’m going to be okay. It’s taken time, but it’s feeling almost rather good again.
Sigh….you know you are not alone here, right? You don’t have to share all your personal details with the world, but sometimes it’s so hard to move past it that it prevents you from writing at all. I still can’t get motivated to write about Morocco and it’s been 5 months and my blog sits fallow. My food blog is not faring much better.
I do look forward to hearing what you have planned next, eventually.
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Thanks. I have slowly started to feel less alone. It’s hard to know how much of myself to share and how much to keep safe and private. I sometimes want to explain everything, to give context to my silence, to give background to my travels and experiences— to flesh it all out, really— but I don’t want to be so vulnerable.
As for what is next…hmmmm… ch-ch-ch-changes are afoot!
Meanwhile, that Balinesian food looks amazing!
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It was! It was sooo good!
Completely understandable to not want to write. I’ve been keeping some thoughts and life changes unblogged for a while. Mostly to not jump the gun on things, but that sense of now wanting to share everything is powerful too.
When we all decided to be blog, I think very few of us knew what it would mean in the long run. The pressure and such to share.
I sometimes wish I could go back to just traveling (and living) for the fun of it and not have in the back of my head all of the posts from the experiences I might be able to write. Sigh.
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I think for me that I have a hard time separating the public from the private when writing, because all experience is intertwined. My time in Bali as a traveller can’t be separated from my time there as a person going through some rather major life upheavals. If I write about Ubud, how can I ignore the elephant in the room, the elephant that defined my time there? It’s easier to just not write about it at all… This whole blogging thing is an odd one. How much can you leave out before you’re being dishonest?
MaryAnne thanks for what you do write. Alberto Manguel would also say you’re doing it just fine.
Aye, indeed- my memory (like his) is like “an agglomeration of brief, confused memories that seem contaminated by literature…” 🙂
Hey, did you see Geraldine’s talk about sharing personal news online? It’s worth your time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VwdPuS3Rag
Also, this. Every time I write from a deeply personal point of view, it deepens my connection with my readers. And also, I’m weirdly successful with those stories. I’m not saying you have to do that and wow, it is totally up to you to decide when you’re ready to say whatever it is you’re not saying. But every layer I work up the nerve to peel away is a layer I’m not sorry to lose.
FWIW. Etc. Also, hi.
Hi!
Fabulous video- I hadn’t seen it but had followed her tumor scare.
And yes, my most personal and vulnerable posts seem to be the most deeply interactive and successful ones too. I get it, I do. When you lay yourself out there, you connect with readers at a more primal level. I guess what I have to figure out is how to talk about what’s been going on whilst still maintaining the privacy of everyone else involved. It’s a fine balance. Some layers can be peeled away but others can’t.
Good for you for writing it anyway.
The real life/blog life dichotomy is complicated. It’s pretty much impossible, I think, to really show who you are as an entire person.
Some things you want to keep private and people tend to read in what they want to hear anyway.
I’m glad you’re back, though.
I like this moving forward approach. On to bigger and brighter adventures!
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This remains one of my favourite posts. You have a really wonderful way of making me burst into surprised laughter when it’s very obvious that you are actually writing about difficult things. Which makes me feel a little guilty and I’m sorry if that sounds insensitive! But it’s a brave thing to laugh through tears and I thank you for sharing with us.
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