Why Come You Do Like That?

I had this whole entry planned about the roots of my interest in horror fiction, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Because I just wrote the longest e-mail response I've done in ages, and it's very pertinent to us (me and you, you fine readers), so here it is, in more-or-less its entirety.

A lovely correspondent (you're all lovely, of course) writes:

"I found your online journal interesting, but I must return my own desperate clamor for information: what do you get out of doing this?"

[My reply follows, with commentary in brackets, so the "you" referred to below is the person who wrote me. But you all understand that. I'll shut up now]

Ah, the "why-do-you-online-journal" question. I've never answered it before, actually, though I've seen many a journaller address this very question... You'd think I'd have given more thought to the question, but okay.

In answer to another question of yours: No, this is not all of my journaling. I've kept a paper journal since January of 1997 (and I wish I'd been keeping it for years before, but what are you going to do?). That journal is wonderful for me. It gives me perspective-- whenever I get stressed or freak-out, I read through it, and see that I've felt exactly that way before, and gotten through it okay. I've got great detail on love affairs, crushes, obsessions, fascinations, parties, musical groups, the dissolution of friendships. Good stuff, that reminds me of who I am. Kim Stanley Robinson wrote "We need an archaeology for our own lives." That's what my paper journal (or, as I tend to refer to it in Tropism, my other journal) gives me. I see who I was, and who I've become. I can see how my attitudes have changed. That journal is full of bile and sunrises, rants and musings-- but at its base level it acts as a day-in-review. The point of my paper journal is that no day go un-considered. I sometimes get lax, but in general I update it before bed (or, lately, at lunch the following day). I used to be surprised that I almost always have something to write about-- something I learned, something I heard, something that struck me-- but I'm no longer surprised. It's hard to be awake for 18 hours and be completely untouched, especially when you've been training yourself to observe things closely, as a poet, as I have for years.

I write everything in my paper journal. Fury, anger, bitterness, depression. When I'm pissed at my friends. When I feel like a jerk for doing something bad. Fears. Shame. Stuff about sex. Extreme reactions.

I do not write about everything in Tropism.

[Stuff about the stuff I don't write about in Tropism has been deleted. Now, now. Settle down. If you really care, write to me and ask-- it's mostly pretty innocuous, really, just things that I don't want to/can't/shouldn't broadcast all over the web. This ain't true confessions. Don't I do enough for you?]

So, the meat of the question: Why do I do it?

Lots of reasons. Let me see if I know what any of them are.

Okay. Several of my Clarion classmates kept online journals. Before the Clarion email list started, I was completely ignorant of the journalling phenomenon. Because I was going to be living with those people for six weeks, I read their journals. They wrote about sf writing, mostly. I like reading about sf writing. I kept reading their journals after the workshop, because they were friends, and I wanted to keep up with their lives.

Then I did a Novel Dare. As a condition of the Dare, participants are supposed to keep a daily word count journal. So I did that, and found it easy and pleasant enough-- I wrote some words, or I didn't, here's vaguely what they were about. Then, more and more, personal commentary started creeping into my journal. What I did that day, and so on. I didn't think much of it; it just seemed a natural outgrowth of talking about my writing.

During my second novel dare, I realized that I really liked doing the entries. I looked forward to them; I thought about things to write during the day, and at night, I wrote them.

That still didn't bring Tropism to life.

That, I have to blame mostly on Karen. Because I read her journal, Thought Experiment, voraciously. I read it from the beginning, at Clarion. I loved it. I looked forward to reading it, I got annoyed if she hadn't updated, even though I checked a couple of times a day. From Karen's journal I drifted to others-- Mary Anne's, Columbine's, Pamie's (those, plus Karen's, are my most favorite journals, for various reasons-- I read others, but those are core). These things were essays, they were rants, they were set-pieces, they were vignettes, they were glimpses into other ongoing lives-- they were great. [And I've linked to all of them before, and they're on my links page, so I'm not gonna link to all of them individually]

When I was a kid, I loved books. I loved loved loved books. At some point, around age ten, I realized that I could write books-- somebody had to, after all, and why shouldn't it be me, since I loved them so much? And I've been writing fiction since then, for 14 years now, and I've never looked back.

That's the same impulse that led me to start online journalling. I love reading journals, I love the happiness they give me-- why shouldn't I do it, too?

And I discovered that I love keeping an online journal. That, at bottom, is why I do it, of course, and that's the point where self-analysis can break down and it doesn't matter. But, to analyze my love a little: I like saying witty shit. I like having a place to go to vent, and actually get responses (sometimes). When I write in my other journal, I sometimes feel lonely... but I seldom feel lonely when I write in Tropism. Because I know people are listening. Maybe it's a one-sided conversation (though more and more of them are talking back, lately), but it's still more than shouting into the void. It's still a writing journal, too (my last novel dare journal just sort of bled into Tropism)-- I write a lot about my writing.

To my surprise, there have been actual, non-totally-internal benefits to keeping Tropism. I've gotten email from good writers, and developed relationships with them. People tell me about markets. When I bitched about my job, I got a few responses about alternatives (including your reply). People talk back, and say good stuff. No hate mail yet. But I don't get very confrontational in Tropism, usually.

That's all just gravy, though.

I've always liked Harlan Ellison's articles (extended rants, usually, but with a brilliant if not formal grasp of rhetoric). I love forewords, afterwords, acknowledgements, dedications, introductions to short stories. I adore the informal essay-- it is one of my favorite art forms (that's why I adore Columbine's journal so much).

If I love something, why not do it?

Didn't Rumi say that, more or less?

As for why I love it... who knows?

That's the best answer I have.

Resume normal entry. I actually thought of something that I didn't include in the e-mail. My one and only qualm with Tropism is that it hurts my other journal. Sometimes I feel like I've said it all here, so I don't say it there. The thing is, I would say it differently there-- and instead I don't say it there at all.

Tropism isn't going to die because of that-- I dig writing this too much-- but it's something I need to think about, y'know? How much introspection does one man need, though? The two journals serve different functions for me, and I think I want to keep them both. Maybe I should just re-assess the function and form of my other journal...

Anyway. Ta. More personal stuff and rants about horror tomorrow, prob'ly.