Mark's Blog

OH! NO! I won't have anything interesting to read everyday. My life will have no meaning. Nothing to get up early for!
Oh, well. It was great while it lasted. And the above paragraph is not meant as a joke. I'm dismayed, at least. I hope that you don't wipe it all out. As I get older and think about family history, I realize that it is all precious. And also fun to go back much later and read stuff that you have written and see what was important to you at that time. Of, course I am referring to stuff I wrote as a teenager, so things you write in your 30's may not be all that much different when you get to be 58 from what you are thinking about at 58. I have some of my letters to Mom that she saved, so I have some idea of what that is like. As a teenager, I wrote things with much more philosophical or "deeper" than stuff I wrote to Mom about what was going on at the moment.
Another drawback to having lots of stuff to read is that it takes a long time. I've been working on Mom and Dad's love letters a long time and there are so many that it takes hours to get through it all. But nevertheless, it is interesting to do.
Thanks again for all your hospitality. Of course, we hope to see you come to the U.S. even for a year. But like the children Matt might have, I don't pin any hopes on it.
Love, Mom

Well, I don't plan to trash anything, or quit blogging forever. I'm mainly planning to take a couple of steps back and think about what I want to do now.

A couple of years ago, I was taking inventory of the problems in my life. One of the (minor) problems is that I've not written anything worth rereading for its own sake. Two thousand odd blog entries and even more pages of software documentation have not changed that.

We'll send you pictures and updates of the children. Today they went on a big shopping trip with Nath. Emma wanted to say what they bought for my birthday. Tim's still having a hard time with no one to do his bidding right away.

Enjoy the break and don't fret about when or whether you start up again. I'd certainly enjoy reading about life in Barraux and your metaphysical thoughts again, but I know that feeling of wondering if blogs capture what we really want. You were one inspiration to my own blogging effort, so all was not for naught.

One idea I've been toying with is to have a private blog for recording raw ideas and thoughts. There should be a way to make my need to record life not interfere with life. I don't know if using a computer for that would be more or less burdensome than carrying around a notebook.

If we had terminals at home like the Sun Ray, always on, virtually silent, administered by someone else, the computer would not interfere with the recording process.

John Gardner wrote a book that Mom gave me "On Becoming a Novelist." In that book, John says you have to get used to your recording instrument so it does not get in the way of your storytelling work. The computer is such a distraction.

Keeping something private is a good idea. If you start writing in public, you have to do your editing immediately as you write. You end up sensoring yourself, as if you were a journalist. Even then you get dragged into discussions about what you writing. Nothing develops.

I had a friend who wrote seriously. Once we were together and she had her notepad. She wrote, "You have to be alone to write." I agree with what she wrote, even if it's not true for everybody. What you write when you are writing for you alone to critique later will fly further than what you write under scrutiny.

Of course when you start trying to fly, you spend most of your time crashing and picking yourself up off the ground.