One of the major problems with publishing under my own name is that I feel the need to censor myself. That's not the best thing, but it is good in many ways. Mostly because some of the more heinous thoughts I have about things/people don't see the [public] light of day. I have a cadre of cronies who are privy to those particular thoughts, and they are the best friends/audience a girl could ask for. It's very important for a writer (me) who attempts comedy (…uh, sure. That's what that is) to have a place where she can just let it go and be as inappropriate and terrible as it is possible for one human to be.
I don't trust people who don't ever express the horrible things. We all have horrible thoughts, and anyone who says they don't is a fucking liar and you should never trust anything they say, ever. EVERYONE has horrible thoughts sometimes. My horrible thoughts are generally far more terrible than the average bear's, but we all think them. Most people choose not to share such things, but I am not most people. However, I have found myself reluctant to share ANYTHING out of fear that it will be miscontrued and read out of context or… whatever the hell.
This lesson, this idea that I need to um, tone it down a bit, is one that I learned the hard way. Looking back, I'm all "uh, duh," but when the shit initially hit the fan, I was, to paraphrase Rhett Butler, not sorry I got caught, but very very sorry I was being punished for it. And I deserved it. Most of it, anyway. There were (and still are) some repercussions from the Great Blog Explosion of 2008 that actually had nothing to do with me and everything to do with other people, but we're all still dealing with it.
Yes, five years later.
Yes, I'm being slightly oblique. If you know the story, you likely have seen my entire presentation on it, complete with interpretive dance. If you don't know the story, the short version is this: I am an asshole with a big mouth and some people don't like that but none of the people involved ever said anything to me directly. Instead, they chose to involve a whole bunch of unrelated people in this drama that went on for years and years and is now slowly starting to heal, maybe. So. I made my peace with all of it ages ago, and I've moved past the point where I need to address any of it (my own personal statute of limitations on dealing with personal drama came and went, twice). So that's all fine. I have plenty of other things to write about (not that you'd be able to tell from this site. Oops).
Anyway, I have been thinking about starting a new, anonymous-ish blog where I can complain about stuff (with all the proper pseudonyms and altered details to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the stupid) but this is the interwebses, and nothing stays anonymous for long. There is an itch that needs to be scratched, though. I keep finding myself in ridiculous situations.
I have some parenting rants that I need to write about. The problem is, OF COURSE someone who knows me will read it and OF COURSE they will think I am talking about them. I probably AM talking about them, actually, but for the most part, the parents I know are all doing a kick-ass job and I don't want to have to preface every post with "I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU, PERSONALLY (yes, I am)."
We'll see if I can make that work in a way that is satisfactory to me. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I am attempting to write fiction. You can say the most outrageous things and get away with it if people understand that it's fiction. So that's an option that I am exploring.
I write all the time. I am just way too picky about what sees the light of day and I need to stop being like that.