While the insane and brilliant writer, Jeff VanderMeer — he of City of Saints and Madmen and the (wonderful) upcoming Finch — is off on his coast-to-coast, manually operated North American book tour, launching both Finch and BookLife, I’ll be doing a bit of guest blogging at his home court, Ecstatic Days.

I’ve been blogging since 2001, and still I’m nervous.

There’s a gap between the blogger I used to be and the blogger I am, and I think I rather prefer the blogger I used to be. The old blogger posted movie reviews and TV show analyses, wrote about whatever he was cooking and where he was visiting. He cracked open the gourd and got elbow deep in the pulp (I say, thinking about pumpkins this time of year). He was into blogging and he got blogging all over him.

I’m not like that anymore, because I’m always afraid that I’ll commit one of two sins:

1. Blogging What Should Be Properly Essayed

This is an arrogant worry. I am bothered that I might blog some idea that would be better off composed as a full-on essay pitched to this or that magazine. In other words, I am apparently concerned that I will either write something so good that you would pay to print or read it (which is a special kind of arrogance) or that I will simply use up all that I have to say on a subject that could otherwise be tapped for paying work (which is a certain kind of ludicrous). As if I my blogging would soak up all the juices from a subject, as if a blog entry would be so profound that it would just shut down the joint, dry it up, and ruin it for all future writing.

These are ridiculous concerns, yet still they get between me and blogging around here, because procrastination doesn’t require concerns to be not-ridiculous. It merely requires them to show up. Or for a new disc of Mad Men to come in from Netflix. Whatever. Procrastination’s willing to work with you.

2. Blogging What Should Be Private

This is an old lament, around here — the conflict between the honest blog and the flattering blog. Blogging about the self-doubt that riddles me like tangled roots makes for good, human drama… but it doesn’t always paint a flattering picture. The blog can’t be a confessional or a corner bar full of commiserate chums… unless you’re already successful. Proven.

David Sedaris can be self-deprecating, even embarrassing, because he is both David Sedaris and not blogging. For all that a blog is a public journal, it’s also a public journal. There’s a reason that guy drinking alone drinks alone. Drinking alone on your blog is probably a bad idea. Since I am usually either writing material for publication somewhere or drinking alone (not really, Mom), this doesn’t leave me much time to do whatever blogging is supposed to be.

That Said

That said, screw those fears. Learn the lessons and then get writing. The lessons are to write smart and have tact.

Except for one thing: this is a blog, so that “write smart” thing is going to carry some meaning beyond the revelation that I sometimes like vernacular grammar. First, it means I won’t be blogging when I need to be writing other things (which is why you don’t see me around here much lately). Second, it means recognizing that blogging can be part of my power-up or cool-down processes, even if I’m just waxing moronic on some iTunes playlist I created. It is better to have written, and I’m going to trust you to understand that no one blog post is likely to be my final thought on a subject.

I am not my blog post. I am not the aggregate of my blog posts. They are just blog posts.

On with it.

Music: Vector Lovers, “Piano Dust”