An old University of Illinois friend texted me the other day. “You haven’t blogged in a while,” he wrote. I was a little offended and didn’t believe him. And then I was surprised, because it was true. I hadn’t blogged in a while. But I have been writing. I’ve been writing quite a lot. Since my April blog post, I have completed two more chapters of the memoir and excerpted one of those new chapters for submission to a few literary journals. I spent June and July preparing a book proposal for a biography of Abraham Lincoln, and its fate is now in the hands of a university press. I have also done some prompt writing for my monthly memoir group and pounded out some wretched poetry.

So, yeah, I’ve been writing all summer. But Will was right. I hadn’t blogged in a while, and that got me thinking about writing and perceptions about writing and about how blogging is a really weird and wonderful kind of writing. Here’s the thing about blogging that sets it far apart from the other writing I do—the scholarly writing, the memoir work, and the poetry—blogging is public accountability for writing. Will’s note was a gentle nudge, a “hey, lady, get back to writing; what’s the matter with you?” nudge. Because with blogging, the writing process is public.

Blogging is active. It is in the here. In the now. Readers can see you writing or not writing. When I publish a book or article, no one thinks about me writing. They think about the words and the sentences and the ideas I have shared on the page. When I publish a blog post, they know I am writing. Blogging is comprised of the words and the sentences and the ideas, but it also places the writer in a space of motion. In the process of writing. 

I love that motion, that public process of writing. In that space there is healing. Writing for me is a journey. Publications at the end of the journey are great, but they are not as important as the writing itself. Blogging keeps me up on my writing toes. I welcome that pressure, that nudging. I need it.

I started blogging for therapy in the fall of 2014. Writing my grief after the death of my daughter helped me feel. It helped me process and push through the emotional and physical wreckage of my broken life. My grief motivated the blogging, but the blogging also became a motivator to keep feeling and processing and pushing. Because blogging is a contract you make with your readers to keep writing, right? It is a promise to show up regularly to share a story or offer some artful prose or a little wisdom. It is immediate. It is the kind of writing that puts yourself out there in the world. It helps you find allies, to connect. It reminds you that you are not alone, and, in the bargain, it gives you a chance to touch souls who thought they were alone but because you are writing they feel a little less alone.

Heady and grand the thought of reaching others, yes, but that’s what blogging does for the writer. It makes you brave. It opens you up. The present tense of it is an inspiration. And because I still need to blog in order to keep feeling and processing and pushing, I am grateful for the public space. I am grateful people can see me writing and breathing and learning how to be human.

So, thank you, Will, for rekindling the fire. For reminding me that, no, I haven’t blogged in a while and, yes, I need to blog. I am compelled to share my stories and to offer a line or two of artful prose or a little wisdom. Well, maybe not that artful or that wise. I’m no sage. I’m just a middle-aged woman, finding her way in the world like everybody else, fumbling and falling, looking for ways to expel the demons, to figure shit out, to think out loud. To write. To be writing. Always writing.