I’ve been writing on this blog for 8 months (exactly). It has been a bit more than a year since I was diagnosed. I have written 173 posts, with a total word count of more than 50,000, and nearly 100 images.
I am wondering if I should make this public. Or at least more public. Not that I am going to blast announcement emails all over the place, but maybe just a link in my bio, or a link off of my homepage. The bizarre thing is that is very much in line with my artwork. Life art on the Internet. I don’t want to make an art project out of my cancer, but I do think that I am putting some of the same creative energy into it, sometimes. Othertimes, I am just bitching, or showing off the holes in my mouth.
Please chime in on the comments. I’m going back and forth on this.
I think some of your recent posts speak to a desire to make it public, if an unconscious one. you referenced eyebeam in your last post, which significantly narrows the pool of people who could be speaking.
But, I think a lot of what has been useful for you about this is that it isn’t public. Much of this is private, fragile information that you’re still processing, and I imagine that it would be very difficult to discuss this blog in the same way you discuss your art projects. Also, I think you’d attract visitors you might not want. Right now, everyone here pretty much knows you or has some connection to the topic, and of the people who know you, you’ve had a chance to tell them about your cancer in a way that you control.
I guess I would ask, would you post differently if it was public?
From taking into consideration what I’ve understood the site’s purpose as well as what I’ve heard is the level of difficulty for the next three months in particular I’d say it’s probably not a good idea to shift around the site at this point. Do it in three months when you’re on the homestretch.
Id wait until you have a clear feeling one way or another.
My mom sez:
the only real opinion that counts is yours
cancer is not a performance nor is it art
it is real and you are living through it
your melanarrative is helping you get through it
the people that are close to you are all there with you
however, when I told your dad, he said you should turn it into a book
can you see me shaking my head?
I have an archived opy of our IM discussion, this summer, when you were asking me whether you should start the blog and whether or not it should be anonymous. it was the conversation where we both discussed the aftermath of doing very public, very personally revealing art projects on the internet. it was a pretty long chat and i rmbr you saying we should save it and post the conversation somewhere as a sort of collaborative artwork/interview. you wanted to call it “We Will Regret This.”
if you want i can email the archive to you, or post it here, so that you can look back on the reasons you said you’d regret attaching your real name to Melanarrative.
meanwhile, like LK, i’ve noticed your recent, frequent hints at going public. i think it partly stems from your hyperdrived desire to write a thousand books right now. but i also think you might think about the reasons you’d consider making it public, and then think about whether there are other ways to satisfy those desires….
honestly, i’m kind of shaking my head with your mom…. and like rui, i think you should at least wait to decide. maybe until you’re finished with IFN, have come down off of it and all the secondary, tertiary meds, and have a clearer vantage point and sense of where it all went.
your writing would undoubtedly change a lot if you made this public, mid-stream.
JS writes me over email:
“Boss,
Speaking about something entirely different, my good friend The Rock Star once gave me some good advice:
“If you wait, you can always share it later. But once you it’s out there, you can never take it back.”
J
PS. Your mom rules.”
okay, 6 to 0. its staying private. for lots of really good reasons. tx for being a sounding board
good call….and your mom is amazing…& I think O is right, you’re just a hyperproductive person by nature and always looking for ways to add content to x y z.