This week’s Guest Editor is the rather fabulous Adele who lives over at Circus Queen (and you can chat her on Twitter at @AdeleJK). She’ll be back on Friday with her top picks for this week’s 10 at 10, but in the meantime she’s been pondering on the importance of being an opinionated blogger…
Adele Writes
I started my blog Circus Queen nearly two years ago, without any real sense of what it was or where it would go. I just knew that I was pregnant and wanted to blog about it.
When it started attracting commenters, some whom I knew in real life and others whom I’d never met before, not even on the Internet, it began to be about community.
It’s still about both writing and connecting. Yet, as I grew more confident in my parenting and in my online voice, I knew I wanted to begin to explore something much more jarring: opinions.
I felt uncomfortable about this on a number of levels. For a start, a few of my real-life friends read my blog. I’d blush when I bumped into a friend who’d chosen to bottle feed the day after I’d blogged about why breastfeeding is so important. I’d worry that my online audience would be alienated by a post about my faith. I’d wonder if people would feel judged by my posts about feminism.
The fact is, it’s very difficult to convey a full picture of yourself in a single blog post while giving an opinion. Face to face, people get to know you, so are familiar with the back story to your words. They can also read your expressions and pick up on subtle tones.
Good writing brings some of this across. It is gentle and compassionate. It softens its message with humour. I often realise that I’m not quite there yet. I’m still developing my style. Still, even the best writing doesn’t accomplish it all, all of the time.
There are also only so many times that you can say “but I know everyone doesn’t feel this way” before your argument is weakened. So I’ve stopped doing it. I’m very open to other perspectives, stated respectfully. That’s what the comment system is there for.
I’ve started saying what I mean and not losing my mind over it. I read blogs with strong opinions by bloggers who are clearly well-read online and offline. If I follow them religiously, even when I often disagree with them, why wouldn’t I publish the same?
I don’t even write anything that controversial but because I deal in parenting, just about everything is controversial.
To my surprise, though, the posts that make me worry the moment before I hit publish are the ones that attract the most traffic and comments. Those are the posts that get shared. I even get emails from women in other countries who want to chat about their experiences or to pull me up on something I’ve said. The latter have sometimes made me revise my stance.
I’m not saying that I write opinionated posts to get this kind of response but that people seem to respond to some glimmer of the true self. It speaks to them, even if uncomfortably.
I also want to challenge you to show your face and say what you really mean. The response may just surprise you.
I think opinions are a good thing too but like you said it can be hard to get then across on a blog when your readers don’t know you in real life. I love your honesty however and having met you in real life I like the way you speak you mind and are happy to disagree with things. Life is all about discussion and learning from each other! X
It’s good to hear you say that and I definitely agree. It’s all about learning from each other.
Life is interesting and varied and I think the more honest people are the more interest and variety there is, so good for you. We’re all different and I think these differences are to be cherished and honoured and- as you say – even learned from.
Definitely. That’s a powerful concept too “honouring”. Certainly, we should honour each other even when we disagree.
Great post – for me that’s the best thing about blogging. The ability to share opinions and ideas. Not everyone will agree all of the time – but that’s life and that’s what makes it so interesting!
Yes, why bother to read anything if you know nothing’s going to challenge you?
As they say, ‘to thy own self be true’. No point blogging if are not going to be honest about your feelings/opinions. Some will value us for the honesty others may challenge but respectfully exchange of opinions is great for opening a dialogue on ‘touchy’ subjects.
True true. We’d be rubbish at pretending to be someone else so we might as well be ourselves!
Fab post!! Those kind of blog posts are the ones I enjoy and usually are the ones which you can usually relate too
I agree. They’re the ones I remember.
I’m a newbie blogger and I’m just beginning to find my voice.
I am not a writer but I lay myself bare. I’m open and honest about my thoughts, feelings and opinions. Like you it’s my real-life friends and family that are reading my blog that I worry about when I press the publish button. What I have recently discovered though is that with blogging come responsibly. I had a twin mummy say that reading my blog had inspired her to restart breastfeeding her twins. Her comment made my day but then it dawned on me that it could quite as easily go the other way . I continue to be honest in my posts but try to bear in mind my readers.
By the way, I love reading your posts.
How brilliant that you were able to inspire her! So true about the responsibility! I’ve gone back and put updates to a lot of my old posts about struggling with breastfeeding because I want people who stumble across them to know it did work out in the end. It’s not always such a big thing though. We have a responsibility to be honest in smaller stuff like our product reviews.
The best blogs in my opinion, are the ones that ‘invite’ and encourage different opinions. We are all different and if we all thought the same, agreed on everything and just wrote about on-the-surface stuff, we’d never get to know each other properly and the world of blogging would be very boring.
I’ve had many opinionated comments over the years, some have been a little unnecessary in their approach, but we are all entitled to say what we feel. It makes blogging so much more interesting.
CJ x