Black Coffee in Bed

For me, one of the more difficult things to determine when it comes to blogging is what to write about in the first place. If Squeeze was writing "Black Coffee in Bed" would the song say something about "the stain on my iPad means nothing to me?" What to share in any medium is the artist's dilemma. You have to stay true to yourself and your art, but you also have to keep some things private where they belong.

With my past experience blogging is bad -- things always start off normal and get all icky and personal before it's over with. The more comfortable you become writing a blog (or anything online) the more something personal might slip out. I am so weary of spilling the beans, I have gone so far as to create a blog written by imaginary people writing about fictionalized events from my "real" private life. I thought the whole idea was great, but I didn't get a book deal from it as I had hoped at the time. (<---joke)

I can remember when I first wrote some HTML (about 1994 I think) and realized that everyone in the whole world could read my little "Hello" given the proper circumstances. It sent a cold chill down my spine -- "This changes everything," I thought to myself. In hindsight, I realize it does and it doesn't. Simply because you can Tweet your sex life or whatever, doesn't mean you should. Your entire life is a long time and I've been around long enough to have inlaws and outlaws whom I'd rather not share certain information with.

The classic phrase is "Know your audience." Well, right now, my audience is me, but I know that could change quite quickly should I slip up and write something stupid...or write something so good that I build up an audience of loyal readers. (Fat chance on that one. They'd all be people who hate me, probably.)