Bisky's Twitterling's Scribbles! discussion
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Posting about the Downs
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(Like my recent grey hair annoyance -.-)
I thought about writing a book about my life before I moved country recently. I mentioned it once. But then I decided against it.
There is another famous twitter example who regularly talks about her experiences with suicide and it doesn't seem to have stopped her massive following :]
So, it's personal.
If you think it will help you, do it. It might also help someone else :]
Just make sure you vent somewhere. Some days I find it very theraputic to put a cryptic message on my twitter :p
Nicole, you will certainly not be considered a Negative Nancy. As Bisky stated, it is important to vent somewhere (else). You do need to stay authentic, though. You are authentic if you do not embellish. I believe in authenticity. If your readers are interested in you and/or your blogs - they will stay with you, even and/or despite your being honest. :)
@Nicole: We all go through negative experiences, and I don't think there's anything wrong with posting about them. That said, I think venting online is a bad idea; it may feel good in the moment, but after you feel better, what you wrote will still out there somewhere and may come back to haunt you.A better way, I think, is to do your venting/processing offline, and then, once your emotions aren't so raw, to write about the experience from the perspective of what you learned from it. As in, "this terrible thing happened to me, yes, it sucked, but here's a lesson I take from it". That way, you both get to write about the situation yet not be negative. Plus, your wisdom could prove helpful to someone else.
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I asked a bunch writer friends If I should post it or not and here’s what they said, in case anyone else has this problem:
“Do it. Humanizes you. Personal connection to your audience. Et cetera. Lol”
“I'd say write something like what you wrote to us as part of it. As long as you keep it sincere it'll be totally fine”
“I think you should post it because a journey is not a journey without some struggles. It will be inspirational because you are following what you want to do.”
“It does not define you as a person. It will make you a better person in your craft.”
“So I think there is a difference between showing struggle and complaining. Like, if you make an entire post on how life sucks, then that's bad. Talk about your struggle briefly, like really briefly, and then finish your post on the reasons or motivations you have to keep pushing through. Make it motivational by sharing your experience. It doesn't all have to be easy peasy”
“I say post it because it’s honest and putting it all out there”
Hope this helps anyone else who has the same problem :) Like I said, I ultimately decided to post it (eventually) after giving it a lot of thought, but I’m going to revise it and make it less negative sounding and more motivational, as suggested by my friends (and you guys!). There’s definitely a difference between venting and showing struggle, it just has to be done right. Thanks so much again! ^_^
I think it depends on what you mean by "negative". I think people are frankly unsympathetic when a writer posts how bad things are going, because things are going bad for everyone, everywhere. Also, MOST people to be honest don't consider writing to be work, so they couldn't give less of a crap if you're not getting paid for it. When you post about that they largely consider it to be whining.That being said, I think it's okay to ask readers you've connected with and who enjoy your work to help however they can, i.e. posting reviews when they have time, and generally help getting the word out about your work. Indie authors don't have a promotional machine behind them, we have only our readers to help us get the word out, and readers understand that. So while that may be "negative" in a sense (because you are asking for help) it's not negative in a whiny, complaining sense.
The road to success is filled with potholes. Sharing those events isn't necessarily being negative. Perhaps a good rule is just to avoid posting things that make one's self sound jaded. No one probably likes seeing that.
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Write what you like so long as it's entertaining.
Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to ask is: do you think that writing a negative blog post will turn off your audience? Do you ever post anything negative? Are there any benefits to being honest? Is there such thing as too honest?