Interview with Megan from “Velveteen Mind”
“Velveteen Mind”
After keeping journals since I was 11 and then losing them all (close to 50 total) in Hurricane Katrina, I was looking for a fresh start. It was hard to face the risk of losing so much work and dedication again, so blogging seemed like the next step. As any writer will admit (come on, be honest!), I always had something of an imaginary audience in mind, even when I wrote in my private journals. With a blog, that shrouded audience is revealed, which makes for an interesting platform and raises intriguing questions about compromise.
I try to approach the Velveteen Mind as I would my own private paper journal, so I write about what I would normally journal about: family, marriage, children, my struggles and excitement over my eBay store, interesting new books I’m reading, and whatever else is going on in my life at the time. The only difference is that now I try to make it more accessible, as having an audience does affect your approach.
I have a love/ hate relationship with comments. Comments are evidence of an audience, which brings up my struggle with “am I writing for me or for them?” Again, this struggle didn’t exist with paper journals, despite my Emily Dickinson-esque dreams of my journals someday being discovered under my bed and published for later admiration and acclaim… But who am I kidding? I LOVE comments and have completely become a comment whore. I respond all the time.
At home whenever I can grab a spare moment. With two boys, one a toddler and one a baby, spare moments are hard to find, though. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I’m blogging when I should be being a more mindful mother… but we survive and my blog thrives.
I am inspired daily by simplicity and the reassurance of perspective. Taking the time to appreciate the pure joy that is to be derived from your child demonstrating compassion for the first time (or the fiftieth), becoming wholly consumed with the progression of a turtle crossing the backyard, or glimpsing your baby’s face in your sleeping toddler. I relish the velveteen. I revel in the threadbare. I am a mom articulate.
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