A More Public Life

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Fred Wilson's post on the effects and perils of blogging, led me to this great personal story by Emily Gould over at the NY Times.

A long, long time ago I started, and then soon stopped:), reading books about writing. The phrase read and heard over and over again was "Be honest!" Fundamental to being original, meaningful and affecting others was being truthful and writing from experiences that were uniquely yours. The same applies to blogging; the most personal posts can often be the most powerful.

One of the older books I read painted a vision of a better world through creative writing; a world where more people were better understood simply because through writing honestly these people gave others a better chance to understand them. Blogs as a technology and a cultural norm enable that.

There is an intoxicating quality to writing honestly about your life and what you think and what you're doing, but the scrutiny that you invite when you make poor decisions, poor arguments and even poor grammatical choices can hurt or just surprise if you're not expecting it. I know that not many people read my blog, but more than once I've been thrown by someone who already knew what I thought about a movie I saw a couple of weeks ago or had read of my other incoherent ramblings....and I don't even let much personal stuff into my blog unlike a lot of my friends.:)

My point: there is a balance to keep; just think about where you need to draw the line.

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