So last night I had this post I wrote and was sharing with you all until a little birdie suggested I take it down. I understood his reasons and without question deleted the post leaving no trace or no copy for myself. I may have went over the line a bit but I still am unhappy because I feel like I do not have complete freedom of expression to write how I feel. This comes with another issue when having your own blog. What to put on your blog that won’t give future employers a bad impression of you. And I completely understand that but it is in conflict with a field such as my own which is all about freedom of the press and of speech. Where do you draw the line between your personal self and your professional appearance? That is a question we should all ask ourselves. The majority of what people see of us today is on the internet and sometimes things frightfully get lost into the void of the web.

So here’s to answer that question at the top. What I should post versus keep to myself. As I write this I think the best answer is to post things that have a more positive approach and if there is a negative connotation to respectfully leave out the person’s identity. Also, if there is a negative post to make it more sarcastic and add a brand of humor so readers will be laughing instead of being annoyed by a ranting loony or ‘Debbie Downer’. However, that is tough because am I only writing a blog to satisfy internet readers or to unveil my inner struggles and challenges so that personal healing could be achieved? I think the answer is a bit of both. Blogs in my opinion are between a personal diary and a published work. When you write a published work whether it is an article, a short story or novel, a writers main goal is to appease the readers and eventually gain a fan base. A personal diary is a form of self healing that explores ourselves. Diaries highlight our inner demons and shows us what we can do to have a better life. Life is not all lollipops and candy. I believe that each and every one of us has a light and a darkness behind. I am at a part in my life in which a heavy shadow is casting over my light. I am seeing who I truly am through each and every circumstance that I recap on my own life. It is quit amazing, thrilling and a bit intense, but as Bill Hicks once said, “it’s just a ride.” Enjoy this music video by Jem.

Another struggle that writers face alike is all the constructive criticism. I had a professor in college who almost made me want to quit writing. I will respectfully leave out his identity, but he over analyzed my works and would nit-pick every detail and it wasn’t just with me, but the majority of the other students. There was a sense of humility when he would criticize each of our works in front of all the students in class around a circle of desks. I had this micro-fiction I had to almost rewrite because it was not accurate. I was writing an Historical Fiction about a Civil War Northern soldier who gets put in a Southern War Prison. I did not realize that historical fictions had to be historically accurate and so my originally fun and action packed story turned into a research project. No fun. Well I learned my lesson never to write another historical fiction again. However, I truly believe in what Arnold Schwarzenegger says about success, in that you have to a be dreamer and an overachiever. Ambition is the drive that gives us the ability to push forward in life, to have a positive perspective from all negative comments and situations and to ignore the naysayers. Here is a motivational speech from The Terminator himself.

I don’t think Arnie could have said it better. I am writing this blog because I want to be successful. Thinking “outside the box” is what will excel me beyond the idea of my own limits. You can only fall as far as hitting the ground and failure is part of it. I will take my former professor’s criticisms as bullet points and succeed that much further. I will never give up on my writing again. And I think I will try to write poetry again because he told me to only stick to prose. Nothing is impossible because Arnold did the impossible and won the American dream. Choose a passion and reach for that goal.