Ta-da! A foray into the wild world of public blogging! I know, I know: “Welcome to the internet, now get over yourself.”
And I shall, Dear Reader, I shall.
But first, I wanted to present some Rules O’ the Blog.
Rules for me, of course. I’ve actually been blogging in some form or another since sometime in middle school (and heaven help me, I hope those blogs have vanished from cyberspace. No one should let middle schoolers blog! Middle school is so full of emotional anguish. We’re just going to embarrass our future-selves!** Stick to a paper journal, kids!), but, for the most part, it’s been held to private journals only select friends could see.
But this is a brave new world, and it’s time I go public. (obviously, I have for a week, but whatever).
With that I have a few guidelines for myself, and I hope to be held true to them.
RULES OF THE BLOG
- Stay authentic.
I promise to stay true to myself. I could not be satisfied with this forum any other way. I’ve given this part a lot of thought. I’ve read a lot of blogs that sounded “unreal”—uber-happy, hyping a product or a thing or an idea to the max, or whatever—and I didn’t want that to be me. That was what kept me from making a public blog for so long. I didn’t want to have to worry that I was becoming one of “those writers.” So I promise to myself, with you, People of the Internet, as my witnesses, that I will stay true to my convictions.
- Do not talk about day job. Day job does not exist in blog world.
Look, let’s be honest. No one wants to hear about regular work crap. That’s regular work crap, and we spend enough time on that anyway. There’s just no reason to devote more mental space to it. It has its own space, and this is not it.
- Do no harm.
Luckily no scalpels are involved in blogging, but it’s a cruel world out there. I’m gonna try to keep it sunny-side up.
- Use pseudonyms for all real-life people, unless they’re ok with being mentioned.
I’m the one making the choice to write online, not them. ‘Nuf said.
- Do not get negative.
There’s one thing to be authentic, but it’s another to spend too much time on the internet. This isn’t the place for negativity. I’ll take a walk outside instead.
- Ignore negative people. (or banish them from commenting)
This goes with the above. I’m going to work on being rubber. You can be glue, if you want, but it’ll probably be more fun to be a flower or dragon or zombie or something else awesome.
-ME
**I sincerely hope this isn’t also true of non-middle schooler blogs. Only time will tell.
M.E. Kinkade 