keep a blog

I’ve opened a blog on Squarespace – purely because everyone else is on typepad. It’s not public, purely a private space to use as a record of my days – particularly with reference to my writing. I won’t tick this one off until I’ve kept it up a while longer.

I’m getting bored with that title. Didn’t quite compute that I’d be typing it out 40 times. Duh! Anyway, I’ve had three previous attempts at keeping a blog – strictly speaking there’s two that still exist, although I switched them to private. And then stopped working on them. This time around the issue was with privacy. Also I didn’t like Blogger. Didn’t like the way the photos uploaded, couldn’t import text (I’m not saying other bloggers users can’t – I can’t and that’s what counts.) Even though I was using nicknames for the kids, when I’m writing about the particular problems faced when you’re raising a child with Asperger’s, I wondered what my son would make of it if he read it when he was older. Would my words come back to haunt him? So I’m thinking it might still be a private blog, at least until I work out what I want to do with it. I like the format of recording our days with words and pictures, so easily. Right now I’m investigating which host I want to use. I’ve used Typepad before and liked it, but I’m also wondering about squarespace. Not Blogger, it wasn’t working for me. Things I need to think about:

• A title. Always tricky.
• Privacy, for my kids and other half.
• Is it public or private? Am I writing for myself, to create a memento for our family, or am I writing for an audience? If I’m writing for an audience, what’s my aim? Am I hoping to turn pro somehow, get a book deal, as plenty of bloggers have? I have to be honest with myself about what I really want.
• Authenticity. Is it warts and all? Do I let it all hang out, whether it’s in public or just private? Do I aim to chronicle only the good stuff, as with soulemama, or do I want to tell it like it is (and risk offending people in the process, possibly my own kids in future years…) I often tend to play up the humour, aim for laughs – does this make it less authentic (especially when I’m so often crying on the inside?!)
• Which host to use.
• The tendency to blog rather than live. To spend more time blogging than on my ‘real’ writing. To go through life thinking “Ooh I can blog about this,” rather than being wholly present. I think a blog can become a lens for some people – is that good or bad?

More thought needed.