Nick and I had a whole conversation via SnapChat tonight about this blog. I’ve noticed the last several weeks struggling to find motivation to write the Sunday Lowdown. Am I tired of blogging? Am I tried of this blog? Am I tired of the Sunday Lowdown? Am I tired of the Sunday Lowdown as it is? I don’t have the answers to these questions yet. Here are some things I do know:
It’s getting harder to explain what I do at school because I have three years’ worth of intense knowledge behind me, so when I try to write about interpreting, I feel like I need to add loads of context for any of it to make sense, and that is exhausting.
Also, I cannot talk about what I do in the Deaf community, nor can I share my professor’s or other students’ stories from inside the classroom. Confidentiality is not only requested, it’s in the sign language interpreter’s Code of Conduct.
I want to find a community to talk with more about the horror movies I watch because my education in fiction writing primes me to dive deep and analyze the themes, motifs, characterization, and plot in horror movies. I find it just as interesting as reading a book and writing a review, but I don’t know if that community/audience is here at Grab the Lapels.
Something needs to change with my Sunday Lowdown posts because I’ve noticed that I write, “I did a thing” and people comment, “Yay, you did the thing!” Surely there is more I can do to engage with readers. You took the time to read; I should give you space to share your thoughts and think about what you may have to say.
My first instinct was to ask you all what you want me to write about, but I did that a few months ago. Folks largely just said, “Keep doing what you’re doing,” or something similar. However, if I feel something is off, then something is off for the content creator of this blog, and that’s a problem. In fact, I was reading The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, and a passage about intuition caught my eye. She explains how intuition can tell us that we need to do/not do something, or it can tell us to pay attention. However, when we have enough anxiety, we ignore our intuition and ask others for theirs:
I like that part about “we need more data.” Right now, with Grab the Lapels I need more data from myself about what makes this space special, necessary, or wanted. How vulnerable am I here, and how vulnerable can I be? What can I share, and what would be a reputation bomb on the internet, where everything lives forever? Should I stick to book reviews, statistics, and thoughts? I’m still processing, so I’ll leave you this week with a thanks for reading my review of Fatty Fatty Boom Boom. I left a lengthy comment for one person and realized that comment applied to pretty much every other question people asked in their own comments. Here is what I wrote about how the author, Rabia Chaudry, is doing at the end of her book:
As I read books by and about fat women, I find myself so torn. It’s like this woman [Chaudry] was happy with getting smaller and sad about getting bigger and then was just happy to accept herself, and I can’t tell if I’m settling for diet stories that are apologetic and labeling those as empowering. It’s almost like the frog that was slowly boiled to death. It’s me; I’m the frog, and memoirs like this are the boiling water.
On Wednesday my review of Emerging Wings: Becoming Myself: A Bridge Between the Hearing and Deaf Communities by Melissa Lewis will go live.
Grab the Lapels 
What do I like? I like you, I like the personality of this blog, I like hearing about your progress – and there has been an enormous amount of that over the past 8 or 10 years.
What do I not like? Horror (except that you often use it to tell stories about yourself).
What do I miss? The small press, independent women writers.
What should you do? Well, that’s not up to me, luckily. I tell largely true stories using fictional names. Would that help you to talk more about your work? I hope you find a path that allows you to continue blogging, and to enjoy it.
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Bill, is it possible we’ve known each other so long? I suppose I’ve gone from professor to professor in prison to theater person to library employee to student. It’s almost mind boggling to think about.
Horror is going to get its own home soon. New project under construction.
I’m trying to think when exactly I focused only on small presses. It feels like it’s been ages, and the problem was I needed to keep a schedule of when to post by to meet each author’s publication dates. I used to do more interviews, but it didn’t seem like folks enjoyed those posts as much, but maybe I am wrong.
As for sharing stories with the details blurred, that is dicey. I’m paraphrasing, but someone recently said that your doctor is all up in your body, the dentist in your mouth, the therapist in your head, etc., but the interpreter is all up in all of it. Hence, the extreme need for confidentiality.
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Yah, I struggle with my own Sunday blog every week so I have no business telling you what to write about, but I can say that my favorite posts of ALL the 20 million blogs I subscribe to are the “day in the life” kind of posts. But that’s just me. I’m sure each and every one of your readers has a different preference so, just write about what interests YOU and don’t worry about us. 😀
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I’m thinking you’re probably right. I also know there are folks out there waiting to see my first Toadman picture of the year. So, I think I might be rather likeable.
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What do you want to write about? Figure that out and then start writing. Please yourself first. Writing is no fun when you are constantly trying to figure out how to please your readers. But I’m pretty sure you know that already. 🙂
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I realized I want to write about stuff you guys don’t want to hear about, so I’ve got plans in the works. I also got some excellent advice from the trusty Biscuit.
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I like hearing about your life because I think you’re a neat woman! So interested in so many different things. But Stefanie is right, you should write what you want to write. I understand the feeling of “something off” in the blog. I’ve been experiencing that feeling with my own blog lately. I’m gonna give myself space to figure it out. Anyway, good luck with your ideas!
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I woke up the next morning at my mom’s house (we were visiting for a funeral/Mother’s Day), and she had all the answers. Why do moms know so much?!
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Your quote from Brene Brown is so me – when I’m feeling anxious about something, I tend to tell lots of people about it, and ask for their advice. This became very clear to me when I had my first kid, and I kept trying to listen and incorporate everyone’s advice, and then that made me completely crazy, b/c everyone’s advice is different when it comes to raising a kid! I gave myself this little test to see if I should really talk to someone about getting their advice; do I want my life to look like theirs? Do I admire them and what they’ve accomplished? Do we have similar life circumstances? If there’s a big ‘no’ to any of those questions, I probably shouldn’t ask for, and listen to their advice.
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What changed for me is I would ask people their advice and straight up reject it because they weren’t saying what I knew I already wanted to do. However, when I had EXTREME anxiety, I would have zero personal opinion, ask everyone theirs, and still not know what to do. Sometimes it would be something as simple as “What am I going to eat for lunch.”
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I think we survey others because we want confirmation for a feeling we already have or a decision we want to make – even if we haven’t consciously sorted out our own feelings yet! I like hearing about your life and I like learning about your school work but I also understand the need for confidentiality around that. I’m not super into horror or the analysis of it but I also appreciate your thoughtful responses to media so I could see myself reading that even if it isn’t something I would search out on my own. I don’t feel like I can give much advice because I’ve been a real slack blogger lately and I always struggle with how much of my own life to share on the blog.
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I was thinking about doing a section of just photos without explaining everything around them, which is something I see on your blog at times. Like a collage section? I have some new ideas, and I’m about to write my Sunday Lowdown, just as soon as I hit “send” on this comment. 😊
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Oh yeah, I do that sometimes. I find it easier to just kind of throw a bunch of photos out there than to figure out a cohesive theme for a post!
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