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When I received an e-mail a couple of months ago asking for my advice on parsnip growing (possible lie!), I sent the person in question on their merry way, but when a question
landed in my inbox over the weekend regarding blogging and the concerns of having your personality online, I thought ''ooh! Now THIS I can answer!''

Emma (who seems rather lovely and, from what I can tell, has no interest in parsnips) wrote:

''HERE GOES: I want to start a blog, but every time I try to, I get scared. I get weirded out about the idea of other people reading it. How do you get past that? Do you ever? Does it worry you that at any time people you go to school with could read what you're writing and if so, does it change what you want to write about? Maybe I'm overthinking this all but I get so worried about doing something that can stick around on the internet forever.''

Hi Emma!

WELL. Questions, questions!

Firstly - do I have ever have a case of the ''oh my goodness! At any given time, my grandmother/boss/ex-colleague could be reading Frock & Roll''/a slight freak-out? Yes! I've mentioned it before, but writing online can be a very nerve-wracking experience indeed, because it's SUCH a revealing act! There's the way that you subtly (or not so subtly) infuse your opinions into everything that you type! The fact that your sense of humour (or lack of it!)/attitude is exposed for anyone and everyone at any time to see! And then there's that moment where you view your daily website statistics and think (random example) ''huh - I know 30 people. 1,500 people have looked at my page today. Who/where are these people?!'' It's an all-in-one rollercoaster of excitement and terror!

My coping mechanism, flawed or otherwise, is to not analyse it too much. I'm not in school (oh, you!), but I believe that if I honestly DID sit before my keyboard each day and think ''okay! What can I discuss today that will interest/appease ___ and ___ and ___? Monkeys? Baking trays?!'', or thought of 1,500 website hits as 1,500 people sitting before me in a room, that it would not only completely influence my content (in a ''is it too controversial/personal to mention?'' kind of way), but that there would also be a WHOLE lot of tumbleweeds floating around here, and not much blogging. I'd be too paralysed by fear to put together anything!

One of the best pieces of writing advice that I've ever heard (in an ABC documentary with popular sex blogger Abby Lee, no less!) was to craft your posts as though you were conversing with your best friend. Would they censor you?! Don't get bogged down into thinking that you have to be everything to everyone! I mean, if you did, who's blog would it really be? Yours, or someone else's? This can be a tricky line to walk, I know. It's natural to want to be liked and to have your pieces adored, but a big, smack-you-in-the-face realisation that I personally had twelve months ago was that if someone didn't like what or how I wrote online, then it's unlikely that we would gel offline, either. And that's fine! You can't please all of the people all the time!

My suggestion would be to sit down and rip your fears apart. What is that truly scares you? The possibilty that someone - such as one of your teachers - could stumble across your private thoughts? Use an alias! You don't HAVE to publish your real name! Thumping out a post that a year later you might feel 100% differently about or disagree with? Delete it! The fact that other people might discover that you have a passion for writing, and that, *gasp*, you might actually be quite magnificent at it?! Be brave! What a crime it would be to deny yourself of such a fantastic creative outlet because of the (potential) opinions of others! Much like that of a parsnip, life is too short for that!

♥

Do you have any advice for Emma? How do you manage having an online personality without getting freaked the parnsip out about it all?! Do you even LIKE parsnips? (And if you have a bloggy question of your own, how delightful! This could even be a regular feature! Feel free to submit it here!)

xoxo

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