For years, I had been in the habit of challenging myself to do something different, & shake things up on the occasion of my birthday in early January. On January 3rd 2009, I vowed to start a blog. I had no idea how to proceed & it took me until the 24th to make my first post. I had challanged myself to do 1 post a day for I year. I failed miserably, with just 2 posts in January & 3 in February. I felt I had lived a fairly interesting life so far, meeting & working with some very talented people, living in several great cities & traveling to even more. I had deeply loved & been with the same man for almost 30 years…but I had no idea how to put my experiences into words that would engage a reader. My 1st posts were about my Husband, my dogs & our house. I didn’t tell the husband about the blog until March 2008 & he was, at the start, none too pleased, & he made me change a few things in my initial post about him. My very 1st comment from someone was on this very post.
Then I decided to celebrate the birthdays of famous gay people that mattered to me. I enjoyed the research & the connection I felt to these figures, but the Husband suggested that my posts were too verbose & encyclopedic. I began to streamline & put the emphasis on why these famous figures mattered to me.The Husband has the eye & the temperament of a good editor. The posts improved. One day, the Husband left a complimentary comment, & I was thrilled.
Because of the blog, I have taken some flack from people in my life, mostly saying that I am way to candid & too open about my life & opinions. Someone once mentioned that the posts were always love- “ with you it is just love, love love”. But yeah, that was the idea… a celebration of what matters the most to me. I think the writing improved, the posts came more easily to me & I started having fun by having relationships with other bloggers.
Bloggers love to get comments & I started to note what sort of posts generated the most comments. I never geared a post toward the goal of garnering more comments, but I did notice that the most comments were on the posts that were the most personal. I also that discovered that I had many readers that never or rarest left comments. I was actually surprised & immensely pleased when my dear friend LJSM (whom I met doing theatre 26+ years ago) told me that she read me, but would save up for a week so that she could have a bunch of posts in 1 sitting. I found out that WCK3, who is often mentioned in posts, reads it almost everyday. Of course there is the bewilderment & heartache due to a small handful of major players in my life that NEVER look at it! I am torn between- “hey, reading the blog is not a requirement for my friendship” & “fuck you, this blog is my baby”.
I can honestly say that having Post Apocalyptic Bohemian has made me feel more authentically myself at exactly the time in my life that I needed it the most. I have made some very dear blogger friends. I have met 2 of them in person & was thrilled to be in their company & meet their spouses. I reviewed a favorite book- Someday This Pain Will be Useful To You & the author- Peter Cameron wrote me a thank you email. I did a post about one of my favorite recording artists from the 1980s- Karla Di Vito & she left a comment on the blog! I had record label write that they liked my music reviews & could they send me recordings to consider? & best of all, I was finding my voice.
A Few Of My Own Favorite & Most Personal Posts:
http://nopoboho.blogspot.com/2009/07/25-years-ago-today-my-best-day-ever-so.html
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