This Blog began 7 months ago in Nantucket as a way to express myself by writing to an audience. If you only write for yourself, then that is called a journal or a diary. This medium, blogging, is a tremendous leap of faith. If you write a book, you have sales numbers. Go on TV and you have a Nielsen rating. Newspapers have circulation numbers. When you tell a joke at a table, people either laugh or they don't. You get what is known as feedback. Regardless of who you are, feedback is important. A woman at a fashionable event like a black-tie Ball, enjoys positive comments about her dress, hair, shoes, or purse. An athlete enjoys having people line up to get an autograph. Performers live for applause, even when they have more money than Fort Knox.... Mick Jagger, for example.
Anything that can be classed as entertainment, by definition, is dependent to some degree on feedback from the readership or audience. This can include good reviews, or bad. Either way, it is about the echo or the bounce back that comes once you broadcast your art form. Without that echo, it is as if the sound never happened, like the old metaphysical axiom "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, is there really a sound?
Two men are walking in the woods when one of them is bitten in the ass by a rattle snake. This is not that story where the other guy calls the doctor... in this story, the companion takes out his knife, makes two small "X" incisions where the fangs penetrated and sucks out the poison. The man who was bitten did well. This is how you can tell who your friends are.
I understand what you are saying about reader feedback. I imagine it is an imminent plight of any writer or artist. There is a great quote that goes something like this - a writer is only half of his book (or blog); the other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns. Nevertheless, I still encourage you to continue your blog. You are a wonderful observer of life and you write your stories the way you would speak them which is one of my favorite things about your style. I guarantee that you have a silent audience greater than you know who reads and learns and absorbs and, perhaps, disagrees with what you write. If you want a bigger audience, perhaps you should consider compiling all of this into a book. You could call it something like, "Are You Listening?" We are, Yockey.
ReplyDeleteRocky,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the comment above: I've enjoyed reading your blog--admittedly haven't read every entry nor commented on every one I've read.
I do think you might gain greater exposure by linking your blog to your facebook page--more opportunity for it to get passed on to someone else. BTW, looks like you only have 21 friends on there--what's up with that? I know you have a gazillion friends out there in the ether!
I'm interested in what you think about these thoughts...
Tim
MY FRIENDS MUST BE INHALING THE ETHER BECAUSE THEY NEVER CALL AND THEY NEVER WRITE. PRESENT COMPANY EXCLUDED. I WILL PUT THIS OUT OVER FACEBOOK. MY NUERA (DAUGHTER-IN-LAW) IS A ROCK-STAR AT SOCIAL NETWORKING. I WILL START THIS WEEK.
ReplyDelete