Jen over at Nonsense Verse says keepin’ it real ain’t really an option anymore, at least not on her blog. It was all well and good to be all deep-down and true when nobody was paying any attention. These days people like me might link to her page and one of my regular readers might be her boss someday (if he isn’t already).
I still don’t know what I think of this … it’s galling that talking about work is essentially out of the question, when whether to have a job is out of the question. It’s like this huge facet of our lives is off-limits. But your job is sorta like your family — if you write about what a fiend your mother is or how your sister drives you nuts, you’ll pay for it. And you can always get another job but you can’t get another family.
Of course you could always go private and keep all your writing to yourself, but could you stand the lack of public feedback? It’s nice to have an audience, however small, and writing is lonely as hell without the validation of readers.
Blogs blur the public/private line. Is your job part of your public life or private life? What about your family/friends/lovers? And how much easier is it to draw a crowd when you start revealing stuff that’s traditionally kept private? It’s tempting to get raw, particularly when it’s so easy, and when readers will egg you on.
It’s been my policy not to say anything online that would get me in trouble with my family or my current boss. I wonder: is it self-censorship, or just editing?
(The funny thing about all this is that I like my current job just fine and have no issues w/friends & family that would cause gnashing of teeth if they appeared here. So, in theory I’m incensed that my freedom has restraints, but you’d never know it from the raft of verbiage I’ve managed to emit despite all these boundaries.)