Jeremiah Tolbert

One of the things about blog­ging I have been strug­gling with since I relaunched a few weeks ago is how per­sonal I should or could get.  For me, blog­ging is as much a busi­ness activ­ity as it is a per­sonal life activ­ity.  I don’t mean that I write blog posts with the goal of sell­ing any­one me, my writ­ing, or my design ser­vices.  I just mean that I am rep­re­sent­ing myself in pub­lic, and because I work online, I try to main­tain a pro­fes­sional appear­ance and atti­tude in every­thing I do online.

I kind of miss the days when I didn’t have to worry so much about this sort of thing, but to a cer­tain degree, it’s part of grow­ing up.  Being aware of how you behave online in rela­tion to your image—that’s okay.  When 95% of your work comes through online refer­rals, you have to behave.

Earlier this week, I wrote up a post about my per­sonal expe­ri­ences on bul­ly­ing, and it was one of the harder posts I’ve writ­ten recently.  I was wor­ried how it would effect the way peo­ple think of me, or if it would upset any of my friends and fam­ily.  Mostly, it struck up some inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions about bul­ly­ing, and the roles of adults when we were all younger.

I had orig­i­nally sched­uled the post for Monday, but I pan­icked on Monday morn­ing and swapped in Tuesday’s piece instead.  I spent part of the after­noon going through the post, revis­ing it and really ques­tion­ing each part.  This is one of the great things for me about writ­ing blog posts early—it gives me a chance to revise and clar­ify my thoughts.  A year ago, I never would have given it that much thought.  Blog posts weren’t nec­es­sar­ily “real” writing. 

What I learned this week is that if I’m care­ful and con­sid­er­ate, I can still get per­sonal on this blog, even though I’m try­ing to main­tain a pro­fes­sional image.   Being pro­fes­sional online doesn’t mean you never get per­sonal.  In fact, with­out per­sonal, you start to lack authenticity.

Different peo­ple use their blogs in dif­fer­ent ways.  Some use them as scrap books, or jour­nals.  I’m try­ing to make this one a com­bi­na­tion, a hybrid—above all else, I want it to be enter­tain­ing and edu­ca­tional to you, the reader.

Never hes­i­tate to let me know if you think I’ve strayed from the path I describe above.  With a lit­tle help from my friends, I should do alright.

#

In other news, I’m start­ing to get excited for World Fantasy Convention. I’m headed out to see my fam­ily for a few days before mak­ing the rest of the drive to Columbus.  I’ve never per­son­ally dri­ven east of the Mississippi so I’m really look­ing for­ward to it, although I do wish that I had some com­pany with me on the drive. Sarah’s too busy in school to take any time off, sadly.

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Tags: blogging, personal life, professionalism