My blog is extremely self-conscious.



It started off as a Xanga, which you can still find at www.xanga.com/SunniMuffin87. It was late spring of 2004, right at the end of my junior year of high school.




I started it because of the inspiration of Diana (then TooFrumpyForTheTeenagePopulation, now GiveMeANickelAndI'llTellYouTheStory) and Sarah(the starvedartist), both of whom were friends from high school. Sarah inspired me because she was just such a damn witty story teller. Diana inspired me not because of her writing (which was, at the time, just about as uninteresting as mine) but mostly because I idolized her.



She seemed mysterious and inaccessible. She seemed urbane and sophistocated. And since the Xanga craze had yet to hit our high school, blogging was still relatively new and cutting edge. So even though I had no clue what to write about, no idea how to make a template, and no digital camera, I signed up for Xanga. And I wrote about what I had for breakfast.



Right at the beginning of 2005, I decided to get a proper blog, and The Fencepost as you know it was born. I believe I also got a buzznet account around the same time, but until recently, I never took that very seriously. And it may seem to some that I only intermittently took this seriously. After all, at the beginning of this summer, I decided once and for all that I would never blog again, and for a solid three or four months, I didn't write a single post. It seemed that The Fencepost would go to the termites.

Then I got bored. And I came back.

And now The Fencepost is in a state of transition. I am full of desire to become a real blogger, but I lack direction. I definitely can't make this a news blog - I wouldn't be able to do much besides recount the latest from the AP wire in my own words. I could make it something along the lines of a Raymi/TonyPierce sort of blog, where I write about my own life, but in an abstract and pseudo-artistic way that makes it more interesting than it (probably) really is. But I'm just too self-conscious to be that kind of blogger. At least on a regular basis. I've written posts in that style, and the next day I feel sort of silly about them, and I feel obligated to chase them with something down-to-earth and much more boring.

Maybe The Fencepost should be a sort of variety blog. A venue for me to imitate all the different kinds of blogs I enjoy. A venue for my narcissism, which is all any blog is anyway.

Maybe if I can just relax and accept The Fencepost for what it is, I will start getting a thousand readers. Because readers can sense lack of confidence just as surely as a live audience can, and I think that's why my blog just isn't that interesting to most people. It's too self-conscious.

posted at 10:18 PM by Alison

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