Audience

I don’t really have a fear of public speaking. I’ve done it many, many times and there is something about being in front of people, with all the attention focused on you, that provides an easy mental disconnect. I actually kind of zone out and view the situation from a third person point of view. Therefore I have no hesitation and no fear, but afterward, I feel like “Man, that was a lot of people!”. Back when I was the singer in a band, I was performing in front of hundreds of people on a nightly basis. (ok, maybe not nightly, but we had some big shows!) I feel very relaxed and confident on stage or in front of a crowd of people.

But it’s different when it comes to writing and publishing. It gets much more difficult to write when I know the content will actually be read by people. For the last year and half my public writing (this blog) has definitely been censored and sometimes even cryptic as I dance around the things I really want to say. That’s because I know people read it. That is both a blessing and a curse. I love having an audience. Who wouldn’t? (I wish you all would comment more, but I read blogs a lot and rarely comment, so I know how it is.) But knowing people (certain people) are going to read it has definitely changed what I publish. Writing is therapeutic and I find it very helpful to write when I’m feeling strongly about something. I’ve got about 25 finished posts sitting on my hard drive, that I wrote and at the last second decided not to publish them. But that’s okay. I know I write for myself a lot and since it does help me, they’ve served their purpose. I’m OK with those posts just sitting there forever.

But what I’m really finding odd is that even when it comes to somewhat random or silly stuff, I am now talking myself out of writing because I think about the response from my audience. “Oh they are going to think that’s dumb” or “this is a waste of their time”…

Yes, it’s true, I don’t normally care what most people think, but you who are reading this, are reading this for a reason. It’s either because you like me or you like the things that I post. Either way, I’m concerned about letting you down when it comes to writing and publishing on this blog. If you look back through the archives you will definitely find a noticeable shift in my writing/posting style about the time I left Arkansas. I picked up new audience members around that time and since then I’ve been a little gun shy.

I am with okay with that though. My life and my personality has changed a lot since then and so what if my blog personality changed too. I think it’s fine.

My life is about to have another major change (as if the last 20 months hasn’t had enough change!), and my goal is to post more pictures and write more often to keep up with the things that are going on in my life. One caveat, because this is a very public blog with some professional peers reading, I am going to refrain from writing about my personal life as much and focus more on my professional development. Of course, these two areas are definitely overlapping right now and for the foreseeable future, so we shall see what comes of it.