My
home town, Friday, November 05, 2004, 7:30 am
Reflections of a New Writer
When I set out to write my book about budget travel and slapped
a few pages on the Internet to get motivated and to get started,
I didn’t realize that writing would become so addictive. I
spent half of last night mulling over my experiences in my home
town, thinking I needed to get my hands on a computer to write them
down as soon as possible. Connecting with your roots is indeed a
rather intense experience. I crawled out of bed at 7 am this morning,
just to get on my brother’s computer to get my thoughts on
paper.
All these thoughts going through my head.
But writing and publishing on the Internet and sharing one’s
innermost thoughts with an anonymous faceless audience, possibly
all across the world is a different story. On one hand it’s
a real thrill to think that my humble, simple thoughts might be
read by other people, and possibly even inspire some reflections
of their own.
On the other hand it’s downright scary, to grant access in
some way to one’s personal inner sanctum, to the private thoughts
between my ears. There’s a definite sense of vulnerability
and doubt about how much to share, what to write about, what people
might think when they read over my reflections.
Funny enough the concern became greater when I started sharing
my website with people that I knew. I had no problem writing and
publishing personal thoughts to a truly anonymous audience of strangers,
but once friends and acquaintances started looking at my material
it started to feel a bit funny.
On the other hand, the opportunity to get out there into the ether
of the Internet and share one’s reflections feels good, feels
cathartic. To feel that my writings might resonate with other people
is gratifying, and the adventurer, the little rebel in me says,
the hell with what people might say or think, this is what you need
to do right now, so go for it! It takes a bit of courage to expose
so much of oneself to a potentially wide audience, but I guess I
have always been a bit of a risk taker.
Related articles:
Read about my
travel preparations for this trip to Austria
Read about the almost surreal experience of my 20th
highschool reunion
Here is my Austrian travelogue
that I wrote from an Internet cafe in Graz
The Homecoming - what did it really
feel like to go back home after many years...
For practical information visit my
country travel guide on Austria
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