Where I'm going with my blog . . .

It's been enlightening, writing this blog over the past several months.  At first I didn't know what it was going to be – a blog about politics or books I read or just a diary of my daily life.  But, I think I've figured out what CV Rick is all about.  CV Rick is ultimately about me and my own perceptions. I've been engaged in a 40 year journey of experiences that are unlike the experiences or history of any other person who has ever lived.

Some of what I write about is not going to be flattering to people I write about, and some of it isn't going to be flattering to me.  That's because I'm a person with flaws – I've made mistakes and in finding the truth of my own writing, I feel obligated to come to terms with those mistakes.  Because I'm not going to be particularly flattering to people I've known, I'm changing the names and some significant circumstances in events recounted.  This isn't to fictionalize the accounts, but to put some distance between those people and the truths they may not want the world to see.  There really was a Harold, but that's not his name, for example.

The things I say may not be completely true, and I'm not going to defend their truth in any debate of accuracy.  They are merely as true as I remember them to be.  This, at first may seem to be a very slight issue, but as I've been studying memory for several other pieces I'm writing, I'm finding it to be a very fluid medium.  This surprised me, the analytical engineer who believed in fact and truth. 

An example is a story I was planning on writing, about an illness I had when I was very young, before kindergarten.  I remembered being told about the fever and feeling awful and the worry about going to the hospital.  I was going to equate that story to my own recent illness and make a statement about the difference in care I received from my mother and my father.  To me this story was completely true, because I remembered it.  Then, I discovered that the circumstances did include a fever and a hospital visit and some surprisingly different reactions from my parents, but that it wasn't me and instead it was my brother and I'd been a witness.  How did it happen that I took the place of the protagonist in this vignette of my life?  I don't know, but it did and I was ready to write it up.  Odd, I think.

I've lost my excitement to write about politics.  There are so many political blogs and people scouring the news to put their own spin on the world's events.  I could be another voice in the cacophony, but that isn't what I want to do.  As such, when the lease runs out on Unspunblog.com, I'm not interested in maintaining it with Rich M.  When I have something to say about politics, I think I'm going to do it in my own way as I have in the past and that way just doesn't fit on venue for politics only.  My way is more personal, because I think all politics is about morality and to say that government can't behave in a moral manner is wrong and I'm not naive for believing it can.  I believe it is wrong to kill people and I believe that morality can and should extend to governments . . . it's too simple for those who want complexity to confuse us and it's too sure a truth for hypocrites to accept.

Want to know what I did today?  Want to know where I'm going?  This isn't the place for it, except as it pertains to something triggered as a memory – a story from my own life.  Too many blogs are interesting only to the closest friends of the blogger.  I hope my blog will eventually appeal to fans of memoir and those who like stories, short and with message.  I hope to spark conservation in the comments and debate. 

That said, there will be more multi-part stories, like Weird Harold.  And it might kill this blog to write them, but I'm going to do it anyway.  My traffic dived from over 70 hits a day to 5 a day during the Weird Harold saga.  Despite that, there's more like him on the way.  I had a roommate who robbed banks and another who'd bring groups of strippers home after the bars closed.  I can't tell those tales in a single post. 

Please let me know what's working and what isn't.  Let me know what have been your favorites and what style and voices are working best for me.  I'd like one day to be able to give my children an archive of this entire blog and say, “here I am, good and bad.  Here are the lessons I've learned and some explanation of who I am.” 

If something's good, something strikes you as worth repeating, please do.  Forward the post around and give credit.  I'd like to see the traffic go up as I create a nonlinear journey through my life and through the world as I see it.

- CV Rick

Comments

[Mark]

40? 40? I thought you were like 32?

Like I've told you bud, I've enjoyed all your stories/postings here....keep it up, you'll have at least one hit a day! :P

[Success Warrior]

Make that two.

I've known you for 26 years and I'm learning new things.

Mark, he is getting kind of old, isn't he?

[Mark]

ah, yah, HE'S getting old...he got carded the last two times we went to Old Chicago, and I didn't!

[graeme]

i like the new style

[Cherise]

I don't think it is so much WHAT you write about as much as it is HOW you write that attracts me. There hasn't been anything on your blog I haven't enjoyed. My favorites are the Connect Four story, even with the tears and your tales about the trip to visit SW.
You have a real knack of engaging your reader. So write what ever the hell ya want... I'll still like it, and really isn't that all that matters? ;)

[CV Rick]

We'll see how it goes . . . the writing's fun and the pressure's less. It's just flowing right now.