Let’s just say the latter part of 2004 has been a good time not to blog for someone who’s not inclined to air personal Sturm und Drang in public.

My approach to blogging is, no doubt, peculiar. While many writers relish broadcasting their tears, fears and bile, I’m happier simply shaping verbal miniatures that don’t have to please anyone but myself, or capturing my own stray thoughts to pin into my cyber collection, as if they were butterflies, worthy of such attention. (Or shamelessly composing purple prose that any editor would blue pencil). We’re all entitled to our own sorts of self indulgence, I guess.

Besides, I’ve always found it calming to tinker with the language. Straightening out a paragraph, trying to bring a nebulous thought into verbal focus, does my nerves more good than venting strong emotions in public ever could. Granted, it might not make for riveting reading.

But what about capital “T” Truth or how-I-really-feel-deep-down- inside? Isn’t that what writing’s about?

Odd as it might seem, the really personal stuff finds its way into the fiction I co-write, where it can lurk comfortably in disguise. It’s on display there in acts I’d never commit. It issues from the mouths of characters quite unlike me. I feel like I can be far more honest in fiction than a blog. Let my fictional characters make fools of themselves in public, not me.