Cross-posting Dilemma: Hazard or Benefit?
This space has stayed fairly quiet lately since a great deal of my writing has been happening elsewhere. I'm toying with a few ideas for some cross-posting, but am unsure if that makes sense.
One possibility would be to simply paste into this space some of what I post on Facebook. Many of my posts there are related to nature observations. Others are links to articles that speak to an interest of mine, usually with my own brief commentary added. Sometimes posts come in the form of public service announcements. Occasionally I repost a pithy saying. What I rarely do is post photos on Facebook. I'm not opposed to doing that. I'm just not very savvy about doing it.
Reposting from Facebook has the distinct disadvantage of possibly being tedious and annoying to those who have already seen the content once. On the other hand, not sharing FB posts here leaves a substantial group of friends outside one of my regular communication circles.
The second possibility would be to include some of what I'm writing elsewhere that fits loosely under the "memoir" genre.
After a great deal of struggle in the process of settling on a "memoir" format that seemed right to/for me, I finally settled on something that seems like the best idea yet. I'm writing dated letters to "My Dear Children" and sending them as attachments to emails. These letters are written in response to a writing prompt from my life in the present. I usually note what the writing prompt was and then write a one or two-page letter detailing my thoughts about the matter. Including memories happens right along with issuing advice and opinions.
I find that writing letters to my children is a very forgiving format. For one thing, they are the most comfortable audience imaginable. They know my faults and foibles and still love me. They don't employ me or serve as authorities for me in any way, so I need not tiptoe around any related potential minefields.
Another reason that this works well is that my children are really the ones I want most to know my thoughts. I'm unsure whether publication will ever make sense or be possible, so this lets me get started on the first increments of a memoir project, even with no endgame certainty. My logic is that doing things this way helps insure that I'm getting the priorities in proper order.
Also, keeping the audience small means that I can freely use real names and unveiled references without fear of offense or violation of privacy. If publication ever happened, all of this risky content could be omitted or edited into a shareable format.
A letter format also serves as an aid to narrowing the subject matter and limiting the writing to a suitable length. When I tried to write memoir chapters under specific topics or to write chronologically, I couldn't get a handle on appropriate starting and stopping points. I've found that even when I have three or four topics that come to the fore from my morning devotional reading, for example, when I ask the Lord to show me which one of these possibilities I should write about "today" I always know how to begin the letter to my children. Furthermore, I can trust the Lord to bring those other temporarily discarded possibilities to mind in relation to later prompts if He wants me to write about them.
I'm not ready to routinely post letters to "My Dear Children" to this blog. I might consider, however, doing so occasionally, if the content seems suitable.
The third cross-posting possibility is putting my Christmas letter here. I feel very conflicted about this. Some of the reasons are too humiliating to spell out here. Hint: this is related to my dismal record for timeliness in many things, preparing and sending out Christmas mail among them. I know also that what is of interest to part of my reading audience constitutes oversharing to other parts of the audience.
I think I've managed to create three dilemmas out of what is essentially one problem: using effectively the "embarrassment of riches" that technology offers. I think I need help.
***************
If any reader has input on what you'd like to see on this blog, especially in relation to the above possibilities, I'd be happy to hear from you--in the comments or in an email to miriam@iwashige.com. Any other insights would be welcome as well.
One possibility would be to simply paste into this space some of what I post on Facebook. Many of my posts there are related to nature observations. Others are links to articles that speak to an interest of mine, usually with my own brief commentary added. Sometimes posts come in the form of public service announcements. Occasionally I repost a pithy saying. What I rarely do is post photos on Facebook. I'm not opposed to doing that. I'm just not very savvy about doing it.
Reposting from Facebook has the distinct disadvantage of possibly being tedious and annoying to those who have already seen the content once. On the other hand, not sharing FB posts here leaves a substantial group of friends outside one of my regular communication circles.
The second possibility would be to include some of what I'm writing elsewhere that fits loosely under the "memoir" genre.
After a great deal of struggle in the process of settling on a "memoir" format that seemed right to/for me, I finally settled on something that seems like the best idea yet. I'm writing dated letters to "My Dear Children" and sending them as attachments to emails. These letters are written in response to a writing prompt from my life in the present. I usually note what the writing prompt was and then write a one or two-page letter detailing my thoughts about the matter. Including memories happens right along with issuing advice and opinions.
I find that writing letters to my children is a very forgiving format. For one thing, they are the most comfortable audience imaginable. They know my faults and foibles and still love me. They don't employ me or serve as authorities for me in any way, so I need not tiptoe around any related potential minefields.
Another reason that this works well is that my children are really the ones I want most to know my thoughts. I'm unsure whether publication will ever make sense or be possible, so this lets me get started on the first increments of a memoir project, even with no endgame certainty. My logic is that doing things this way helps insure that I'm getting the priorities in proper order.
Also, keeping the audience small means that I can freely use real names and unveiled references without fear of offense or violation of privacy. If publication ever happened, all of this risky content could be omitted or edited into a shareable format.
A letter format also serves as an aid to narrowing the subject matter and limiting the writing to a suitable length. When I tried to write memoir chapters under specific topics or to write chronologically, I couldn't get a handle on appropriate starting and stopping points. I've found that even when I have three or four topics that come to the fore from my morning devotional reading, for example, when I ask the Lord to show me which one of these possibilities I should write about "today" I always know how to begin the letter to my children. Furthermore, I can trust the Lord to bring those other temporarily discarded possibilities to mind in relation to later prompts if He wants me to write about them.
I'm not ready to routinely post letters to "My Dear Children" to this blog. I might consider, however, doing so occasionally, if the content seems suitable.
The third cross-posting possibility is putting my Christmas letter here. I feel very conflicted about this. Some of the reasons are too humiliating to spell out here. Hint: this is related to my dismal record for timeliness in many things, preparing and sending out Christmas mail among them. I know also that what is of interest to part of my reading audience constitutes oversharing to other parts of the audience.
I think I've managed to create three dilemmas out of what is essentially one problem: using effectively the "embarrassment of riches" that technology offers. I think I need help.
***************
If any reader has input on what you'd like to see on this blog, especially in relation to the above possibilities, I'd be happy to hear from you--in the comments or in an email to miriam@iwashige.com. Any other insights would be welcome as well.
posted by Miriam Iwashige at
9:40 PM
2 Comments:
I suggest you compile Facebook posts, perhaps by categories: Nature observations, links to articles, etc., but always only Facebook posts in that particular blog post, and make that clear in the title or first paragraph of the post. That way your Facebook friends will know up front they have likely already seen this info, and the rest of us "Neanderthals" will know it's new information. And I'd also love to see your letters to your children. Linda
By
LRM, at 12/28/2019
I echo LRM's comments. I always enjoy your writings and have avoided FB as much as possible.
By
Ellis, at 12/29/2019
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