Shapely Prose Writing Tips

As noted earlier, I recently discovered the fantastic blog, Shapely Prose. It’s helped me remember a part of myself that I find too easy to forget. When I first read this entry of Kate’s writing tips, I sort of skimmed over it. After all, I was there to read bitingly funny commentary on our fat-phobic culture. But her words wouldn’t leave my head, and I realized hours later that they were exactly what I needed to read.

I’ve been having problems with this little blog lately. I’d been thinking that perhaps I didn’t like writing nearly as much as I thought I might since I couldn’t seem to, you know, write anything. But Kate’s words made me realize that I’ve been deep in the fantasy of “writing for everyone” while pretending I was only “writing for myself”. I need to focus on an audience. And get over myself.

Why am I writing here at all? I tell everyone that it’s to keep all my far flung friends up to date on what’s happening in my life. And that’s true. But I also wanted a place to share what was going on in my head (frankly being alone with my thoughts is kinda scary most days). And I was hoping that the act of writing regularly, for an audience, would help me develop my own “voice”.

I’ve been censoring myself too much, trying too hard to fit my writing topics and styles into the topics and styles that I admire in other blogs. It’s time to stretch beyond what feels safe (which isn’t much most days), and discover myself by revealing myself to you.