Am I writing feuilletons?

I have been blogging for a while now and from time to time I wonder what it is that I actually write. Wondering about my writing genre may be a presumption. This term is for literary folks and I am only a person who likes reading and writing and at times needs to clarify thoughts and believes through blogging. Nevertheless, I notice that my blog covers varied subjects. Book and film reviews, traveling impressions, events from my personal life, my observations on varied subjects.  My mind seems to need a better structure or a justification why it is OK to write haphazardly as I seem to do. If I have constant readers (one can always dream), they may want to know what to expect from my new posts. And I am all over the place. Should I change it? Maybe I should, but then it might not be authentic or spontaneous.  And after all I am writing mainly for myself.

One day the long forgotten term feuilleton came to my mind. This is a popular term in Poland, but I can not remember hearing it for some time.  Apparently, even if the term is used internationally its meaning varies from country to country.

Wikipedia says:

Feuilleton was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades and other literary trifles. The term feuilleton was invented by Julien Louis Geoffroy and Bertin the Elder, editors of the French Journal des débats in 1800. The feuilleton may be described as a "talk of the town",^[1] and a contemporary English-language example of the form is the "Talk of the Town" section of The New Yorker.^[2]

In Polish press terminology the term feuilleton (Polish: felieton) meant a regular, permanent column in a magazine where episodes of novels, serial press publications  and other items on entertainment and cultural issues were published.

The Feuilleton is a writing genre that allows for much journalistic freedom as far as its content, composition and style are concerned; the text is hybrid which means that it makes use of different genre structures, both journalistic and literary. 

                                                                       
                                             

I like the highlighted bit best – much freedom is my thing. Freedom is even one of my core values, most likely causing some problems in my personal life. Looks that I need to pay the price, for sticking to my values, without complains. On reflection, I decided that what I write could be called feuilletons. I rather like this classification.

Further the Wikipedia says:

The tone of its writing is usually reflexive, humorous, ironic and above all very subjective in drawing conclusions, assessments and comments on a particular subject.

Unlike other common journalistic genres, the feuilleton such is very close to literary. Its characteristic feature is lightness and wit evidenced by wordplay, parody, paradox and humorous hyperboles. The vocabulary is usually not neutral, and strongly emotionally loaded words and phrases prevail.

I like it even better. Maybe I am not there yet, but this is a great guide to follow. It gives me freedom without feeling like I do not know what I am all about. So, now I have a label - I will write feuilletons. Ufff….

P.S. I received a couple of comments saying that there is no need to analyse a nature of my writing. I objected mildly as I like analyzing, such is a little weakness or strength of mine.  Then this morning I came across a statement by Laurence Sterne - to define - is to distrust. Really? It made me stop and think (analyse???). I never heard the name of Laurence Sterne before so I checked and found out that I have another hole in my education to fill. He was an Irish novelist of XVIII century. The portrait was painted by Joshua Reynolds, so he must have been famous in his times. But how about his rather unsettling statement. I obviously tried to define my writing, or maybe even myself. Hmm..... Something to think about. Or maybe comment?