Bloging Milestone

It was not long ago that I started my blog and today I hit the mark of  100,000 page views. For some people this is a small number but I am happy with it. Since I always liked reading, writing was on the cards as the next step and some progression. When I was fifteen or so, I started my first novel. I wrote maybe five pages and this was the extend of my career as a novelist. Then I attempted to write a journal and was more successful this time. I have in my drawers many beautiful books with my thoughts and problems of the times. It was a long time ago that I came across Morning Pages technique recommended by Julia Cameron. This is writing three unedited pages first thing in a morning. Something like stream of consciousness writing. It has not made me a James Joyce, but I solved many small problems this way. I would recommend starting days with the morning pages. Silly thing is that I almost stopped writing my journal in the recent months, but I want to get back to it. This is like talking with myself without putting any censorship on it. To make it easier to keep my new promise I ordered a nice new roller-ball pen with inscribed Amor Fati on it. I am getting a bit pathetic, ain’t I? Still for some years now I have liked nice pens, harmless addiction.

So, this historical event of reaching 100,000 page views started with the encouragement of a friend – My question: How to start writing a blog? Answer : Just do it. And I just did it. Thank you JC.

There is another person I consider with fondness as my teacher in many life disciplines and in writing as well. I believe that I wrote about is some time ago, but this is one of the characteristics of recalling memories. Repetition. So here it goes again. Polish written language is similar to German. Long convoluted sentences very few people can read to the end still remembering what they started with. It is supposed to be sophisticated and intellectual, I believe. My first business memos were tragic and I could not understand my problem. When a well-meaning person made five sentences out of one (I though short) of mine, I was shocked. Without being fully convinced I started to pay attention to writing short sentences with mixed successes, but I always remember the person who alerted me to the facts of written communication.

As I mentioned in one of the previous posts, I seem to have recently some problems with finding subjects to write about. Subjects which would interest others and myself. Subjects which would allow me to retain my sense of humour and distance to my current situation. Being able to keep some distance to the subjects I write about was always the key to allow seeing things clearly without emotional clouds and blinkers.

In the recent times I received some compliments that made my head spin. I never thought about myself that highly as somebody wrote about my subjects and way of writing. And now what? Noblesse Oblige? How can I live up to it? I never thought that highly about my posts myself. Just in case I was not able to express myself accurately, this was all said in a spirit of embarrassed humour.

Now, that I still have not found a decent subject to write about I will stop hoping that I will come up with something more meaningful soon.

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?