A little over seven months ago, it seemed like a good idea at the time to start a blog.
But I lead a very private life. Unlike the large fraction of my social circle that regularly discusses life happenings on public Zephyr, I opt to only deal in the personal, private messages over the protocol. I often like to take photographs, but I don't like sharing them. I do a lot of pen and ink drawings, but they hide away in my Moleskine or various manila folders. I jot down a lot of notes, sometimes they turn into composition titles or even poems, but mostly, I note them just for me. If you know me really well or have ever lived with me, you may even know about the "secret" musical instrument (not my digital piano) I keep close by to play when no one is listening.
I also possess strong tendencies to keep my work and academic lives separate from my free time, so while I may opt to hack on code after hours, I don't get that urge to write about it that many people I know do.
So why would I decide to write a blog? There was the external momentum of Iron Blogger, but more importantly, I really like writing and don't do nearly enough of it.
Initially, I thought I'd write things somewhat in line with the title of this blog: sometimes, people tell me that I'm more observant than most and should share some of my thoughts on those things that most people miss on their day to days. I guess I did that from time to time. Unfortunately, I found that I rarely blogged about those "negative space" observations because they either felt more personal than they actually were or really didn't occur to me as something I could have written a coherent piece about.
I forayed into writing pieces on brief musical whims, more academic or computer related topics, and simply posting recipes. Looking back on it all, I didn't necessarily enjoy writing at least a good minority of those posts, and I often found myself struggling to find topics to write about each week.
But it's funny what happens when you find something you really like to write about and start writing about it. Instead of thinking to myself, "Liz, it's been a long time since you've written anything at all," now I find plenty of fun to discuss topics that peak my interest racing across my mind each day. My most recent posts have taken a little over an hour or two to compose each (time in the kitchen excluded, of course), and each of those hours has flown by. Even this retrospective "housekeeping" post has been enjoyable.
I swore to myself I would never really be a food blogger: the space is already painfully oversaturated, and I don't want to devote nearly as much time to it as those who do it really well. But cooking and baking really are my primary hobbies, and as long as I'm not just throwing a list of ingredients and directions accompanied by a few pictures up without a story, food blogging shows a lot of promise in becoming another fighting candidate among my favorites. I guess I also partially blame my "other" Twitter account because when I told some of my friends (many of whom don't actually have Twitter accounts, but will be following the old fashioned way), they kept bugging me to make sure I followed up with the recipes somewhere, too.
At the end of the day, I'm glad I joined Iron Blogger because it was a push I needed to start a blog I have grown to love. But I'm not sure I like the pacing it sets. Right now, it's working out fantastically in my favor—I'm happily churning out a handful of posts per week—but I can remember the weeks I didn't feel like there were things to write about and drudged through producing posts. Still, it's nice to have reminders.
One last question: so am I keeping the title "Playing with Negative Space?" Yeah, that's staying—if only because typography nerd in me likes to see it each time I work on a new post. Plus, I like to trick myself into believing that I have the world at my feet (no really, I do), and I'd hate to limit myself to only ever posting about food because who knows when I'll come up with an interesting algorithm, typography find, or minimalist piano composition to throw your way.
