anyone who blogs or reads blogs knows about voice. it's one of those indefinable things, but you know it when you see it. or read it. it's something that evolves as you find your feet in blogging and learn to define your space and your style. for me, it's the magic thing about the genre of blog. it is what you want it to be. it's chatting and friendly if you want that. it's confiding if you want that. it's informative. it's snarky. it's really whatever you want it to be. a space to experiment and find that elusive voice. and some voices you relate to and some you don't.
some bloggy voices lose their resonance for you and like an old boyfriend, you wonder what you ever saw in them. and some you wonder what anyone sees in them in the first place what with all those netflix reviews and the truly awful hackneyed poetry or all that overblown cutesiness, pouty mouth posing and overuse of the word rad [shudders]. of course, the beauty of the blogosphere is that you can just avoid those places and go somewhere else where you feel inspired or challenged or where you laugh or cry or think or just gaze at the pretty pictures. because the blogosphere is pretty big. bigger than the pacific ocean, i think.
but even tho' it's huge, you find lots of people out there to connect with. and you learn something from them or you enjoy how they captured exactly what you'd been thinking, but said it so much more eloquently than you could have, right when you needed to hear it. and you wish you could hang out with them. and sometimes you do. but not as often as you'd like. so every morning or late at night, you open your reader and you go see what they had to say. and that's because you like their voice.
* anybody know what the picture has to do with this post? i'll send a handmade prize to the person who comes up with what i, based entirely on subjective, personal feelings, think is the best answer. (and yes, i admit that this is a draft post that i started ages ago and i no longer remember myself what it meant. there is a chance that i just liked it, but i'd like to assign it deeper meaning than that.)
29 comments:
i don't know, but i DO love the word Rad. :)
i grew up in San Diego, if that helps ;)
The picture represents how one blog voice (or building), when seen from a varied perspective (like around the corner) can look different to you than it does to the next person. And it's also probably a little about how the pictures that are on a blog add to its voice because we all know that a good blog is so much better with great pictures.
What strikes me about the photos is this ... the ship hatch-like looking door, the weathered building of unknown interiors and windows with reflections.
A closed box-like room with reflective windows ... do we ever know what's really going on? I suppose that's the value of myth, pretend and metaphors.
I've been working on a piece of art that's still unresolved and I guess this photo with mystery resonated when I opened your blog.
well, your photo represents that if you want to, you can go in and spend some time at a blog (using the door), or you could pass by. and the door gives an impression of what the blog will be like (like a first impression) but might not be accurate when you spend some more time there.
happy weekend!
xox
k
I have no clever ideas for the use of the photo...erm...nope...none.
I did like the post though - there's my voice :0)
I scrolled quickly past the other comments not wanting to read their answers before I share my own.
I think the door illustrates your point very well. Doors leave us many options: enter, exit, hover, linger, slam the door shut, open a door forever . . . just as you describe how we have many options as to how we blog and whom we follow.
The other idea that came to mind was that you photoshopped the image and are no longer happy with it - and you are ready to change it.
I enjoyed the little challenge you offered here - with your wise insights about blogging.
I totally agree, and we did talk about having/not-having voice didn't we. And one of the reasons I love blogging and blog-hopping is because - like you said - if you happen to like someone's voice you can linger there for longer and if not - you move on and noone will ever know you've ever been there!
I've been wondering recently how conscious we are ourselves of our voice and whether what we think is our voice is what others think our voice is... And also how, whether we want it or not, our life outside of blog (if any) affects the voice... I've been having pretty c**p time lately and I would love to know if it shows in the blog.
And as for the photo, I have no idea what it represents, but it sure is pretty!
i think the contrasting colours shows the different voices you encounter.
Your post was as if you had peeked into my mind about the whole blogging experience, and your words said it so much better than I could have. As for your photo, I see the house with solid walls, solid wooden door and small window, a place where the mind has grown closed and the emotions inside are not being nurtured, not given air to breathe and exposure to all of life. The plant life alongside is growing fast and tall, trying to cover up the ugliness of stagnancy. And as the sun shines on all of this, it's also a call for a new beginning offered us each and everyday. I'm probably not anywhere even close, and I'm eager to read the other comments as I have not read them before posting. I'm sure you've been entertained by the possiblities of the minds.
The photo to me is about perspective. One step to the right and you may have missed the door entirely. One step to the left and the the mottled wall may have appeared more dingy and dull. Of course, the perspective could be time, as well. The paint chipped wall with ivy could at first glance appear very interesting but then later appear dismal and downtrodden. But your timing was perfect, with the light upon the deeply grained door creating an aura, enough to make the wall around it seeming to disappear. Which, of course, lends to the idea of opportunity, deciding whether to stay and reflect upon the past or to open the door and explore something new...
Thank you already for the prize ~ a moment to enjoy your photo, to reflect, digest, and write. As always, you inspire.
Hope you and yours are having a good weekend!
I am skipping everyone's comments because I don't want their words to form my ideas on this post.
First, let me say that I was just thinking this same thing - and although you started this awhile ago it is relevant me lately, on my mind if you will.
Now, as for the picture. There is a door, and it is the sunlight. There is a window in the shade. I picture the door being a new blog you are walking into - nothing known about what is on the inside. You look around and you feel comfortable or you don't. A rad mouse sneaks out of the corner and scares you back out the door or you find a comfy couch and they have starbucks coffee in the red mug and you sit down, cuz the walls are your favorite blue and it feels right.
However, they writer (room) changes with the person - or you the reader decide you like tea, and need a treadmill instead of a couch and you find it is time to leave. But the door only walks in easily - out is harder. So, you will now have to escape through that window, and while you feel like a thief stealing out - once the fresh air hits you - you know it was time.
Wow - see what happens when I get two hours of silence (giving SAT test) and a mac book at my disposal Maybe I am not brain dead - just ... demanded up in every day ife :)
K - thanks. that was fun
Your post made me laugh. yes you are absolutely right. finding friends or people you wanna hang out with when you read their blogs.
Really do not have a proper clue when it comes to the relation with the pic though. But in some blogs it is the words and in some the photographs, or both that make you stop and take a closer look. They speak of the one that posts them and you would like to know better.
soo, really nice to meet you, my name is elis. :)
I think it says you missed a spot.
yes it's suprising to me just how often I have to 'unsubscribe' from blogs. I think you're more forgiving than me. I just can't deal with blogs that don't engage me for any length of time. out they go....!
LOVE the photo, it's really super. For me it means come in the door, look around, if it's not to your liking you can either hoof out of the door and slam it. Or it you're kinder and wait a while, just open the window, let a bit of air in and then see how you like it?
Of course it could also mean: Julie didn't have a photo so just picked something lovely ;-)
ps the word 'rad' makes me wince. So chav...
and the poems bother me
and the cutesy
For me, the photo represents voice in the same way that words do... some pictures just speak to you and sometimes they portray things in a way much better than you feel you could have. You can't quite identify what it is that makes you feel comforted... could it be the splattered blue paint of the wall, the brown door and green weed making the contrast, or is it what the photo reminds you of?
It's much the same with writing. Is it the beauty in the voice, or what the voice reminds you of?
(in case you didn't know, I love your post as well as your photo!)
What I see in this photograph is nakedness...that raw, real, WYSIWYG. My paint may be a little chipped, but isn't it a lovely heather-teal color?
The yard isn't very well tended, but it's growing, green, alive. You might have to walk a few steps to come in, but it's sunny and warm in my piece of the blogosphere, and my door is there for you to open. Or if you'd rather...you're welcome to just go peek in my window. I won't be offended if you don't come in to visit and speak to me. You'll probably see yourself reflected there, in my window. And if you press close enough...you'll see ME.
The gates that I put up around myself...they're not very strong. They're just there to deter those that would trample on my plants thinking that they're weeds. But I know...that YOU know...they're plants, and that you're looking at them thinking that even against my chipped paint, there is lovely growth. And that's why I so enjoy when you come to visit...my blog.
The picture is YOUR voice. I read your blog on a regular bases just to see your pictures. I like to think of it as you speaking through your pictures. You show life, meaning,and your creative side. And I love your voice.
I loved the post too ...
the wall and the door ...a window too ..all part of the soul.
Perhaps we get a little part of that with every blog.
interesting thing about voice - the reception can be different for different people. i've had that happen to me too.
For me, the house in the picture is like a blog. it can have different sides. It can be a lovely reflective window who reflects the beauty around and share it with other in its own pretty frame... or it can be like a closed door who has nothing to do with others. xo
Oh Julochka! Guess what is the verification word down here??! it's Sabin! how lovely! xo
I am totally going to start using the word "rad" in all my blog posts. Also, squee!!
Squee!! It's going to be so rad!!
and what you just said...written better than I could have right now....
and the photo....love it !!
what it means....no idea....sorry :(
I vote for kcgirlgeek....
But, I see light shining on the door and I find that in blogging we excavate, finding our own voice by shining the light on doors we are meant to walk through, you know, opportunities that we might have missed had we not given our voice attention...I see the shaded wall with peeling paint, a form of shedding and the plant growing up around the shedding layers of our voice....and the window reflecting vibrance and growth. All things I experience by blogging, by giving my voice license to shine....
always provacative, you are....
♥
S
I think the picture is fitting, and a perfect metaphor for a blog. That green wall with specks of white, the slightly wild vegetation and the small window... this house may not be everyone's cup of tea, but some will absolutely love it, be captured by it right away and go back again and again, maybe even wish it was *their* house.
Some may not like it and turn away, towards something more polished, more to their taste. But others might decide to keep looking, turn the corner and see that white wall, maybe enter that door, and find there is more good than bad, more that they like than what they don't.
And they'll return to the house, because although it may not be what they usually like, they find this specific one fits them just fine.
So true.. I think not only blogging but any way in art where you come to this absolute moment in expressing your self in the esthetic way that is you, you feel the same. It is like an euphoria. Like happiness it self, as if you are emptied, as if you have no more to say, as if there is no more in happiness than that very moment.
The picture describes it because this moment in creation where you hit your own perfection is like a peaceful deep corner of yours that happens to be in open air suddenly. Just like in the picture.
I like your blog the same way you described. I hope that you will have always chance feed your soul and have always something to express to us.
Love,
b
I'm getting acquainted with your blog - and enjoying your voice with these thoughtful posts!
I'm just reading this post today and can't imagine that, being the 29th commenter, I'll have one original thought about the post or the photo. Nevertheless, here's what I have to say on the subject(s):
The blogosphere reminds me of high school. You show up feeling incredibly insecure and seeing every other blogger as cool, marvelous, sophisticated and so much better than you. With time you find your own little group where you feel safe. With time you become more self-assured and begin to show more of yourself. You experiment, branch out, make new friends and leave some of the old friends behind. You develop BFFs and you avoid the crowds that scare you. You tell secrets, give advice, listen to the advice of others. Sometimes you argue, take sides or just listen. You soothe the wounds of those you care about who are hurting. You stand up for yourself when criticized or decide you don't give a hoot about the opinion of others. And through it all you grow.
As for the photograph, I see a metaphor for blogging: When one side gets old, just look around the corner and there's a new door to discover!
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