I think I might be back . . . maybe.

I guess I’m back?  Once again, I traveled to meet old internet friends, and most of them gave me a ration of shit for not writing anymore, and I just sort of cheerfully batted it back like it didn’t bother me, and then . . . I came home and looked at the old blog again. The truth is that I like to write, but life does get in the way. There are aspects of my family life at home that I don’t always feel at liberty to share, because the actions of some people close to me are such that discussing them in public might amount to shaming them, even if that weren’t my intent (and if I start writing about those parts of my life, the urge to shame people publicly from time to time will be there.) Maybe that’s not even such a terrible thing, but then again . . . the internet is forever, right? And we’re talking about young people making very bad choices . . . . they could be totally different people in five years or ten, and nothing I write about them on the internet is going to go away. I’ve often wondered if that’s one of the lines between a dilettante like me and a “real” novelist or essayist, that the “real” novelist would “write what he knows” and let the chips fall where they may, even if it meant that people he loves were held up to public ridicule or shame going forward.

Maybe the solution is to put a new blog up at www.donniegwinn.com (snazzy, no?) and be completely transparent about my identity, but carefully censor what I say about the people in my life and the problems I face. That seems like it will make good blogging pretty tough.

Or, maybe the solution is to put a new blog at another domain I registered a few months ago (not my name) and start over anonymously, telling only close friends who’s writing there, and just write about everything that’s happening in my life, both as a way to get writing inspiration and as a way to survive it. 

Of course, I could just journal all this stuff privately, but that seems like a tough way to become the center of attention.  ;)