Now that I’m getting back to blogging, I’m thinking a lot about how I could best promote my blog, of course. Certainly, there are many instructions to read and some researches to make – I noticed that I actually don’t know a thing about wordpress or social media. It was only recently that I’ve found out how to use Instagram, and looking at the accounts followed by thousands of people, I’m still not sure if I’ve totally figured it out. 40 followers, whoop whoop! It was quite the same for Pinterest, my flatmate needed to explain it to me, otherwise, I would definitely still be clueless. And there are still tons of apps which leave me somewhat confused. Snapchat for instance, or Dubsmash, which recently flooded Facebook like a virtual tsunami.

I don’t really mind that my social media skills give room for a lot of improvement, I can always add that to my “Things I want to do or to know or to be better at” list. And since social media can be really important for your personal or professional project, I guess I will start some reading after finishing this post.

After having published my previous post I thought about with whom I wanted to share my blog. Taking a more personal direction, I wasn’t sure if I wanted everybody to read it. Funnily, I wasn’t afraid that my mum could find out anything compromising about me, she already knows everything. I was more afraid of the possible judgement of the people I know, which means friends, friends of friends, some coworkers, some acquaintances. I’m rather introverted and so making friends usually takes quite some time, mostly because my extremely pronounced skepticism makes me dislike most people at first. So of course, I don’t want to ruin a friendship with a couple of stupid lines. But of course, I came to the conclusion that your friends like you for who you are, or in some cases, despite of who you are. So I guess that also counts for blogs. By the way, I’m sorry Linda that your guinea pig got diarrhea. It was me who had fed him all the dandelion. I didn’t know he had a dandelion intolerance. Hope we can still be friends!

Finally and as you can see, I spent way too much time thinking about how I would come across. Also, I’m somehow hoping that those who read my texts will be more inspired by the texts than by my person.

As for music, people tend to recognize themselves in a song and the most successful and powerful songs usually have lyrics which are appealing to many people, so that they can connect to it. Good music provokes an emotion but also responds to the listeners emotional state. When we’re listening to music, the person who wrote and sings the song seems less important and is slightly shoved in the background, becoming a rather abstract figure.

I think it’s the same for fictional literature, and maybe even for some non-fictional books, such as (auto)biographies. Besides a great plot, readers are hooked if one of the book’s characters inspires sympathy. This is mostly the case if the reader finds any kind of common ground between himself and the character. Besides, I think that this even contributes to creating a suspense. In my opinion, as identifying with a character, we’re also looking at an abstract reflection of a part of us. This can lead to questioning our own acts and our behavior towards others. Therefore, identifying with a character also means judging ourselves through this character. And so while reading, we constantly need to be reassured. Is the story going as I expected? What if I was in the same position? Would I have done the same thing?

It has happened to me that I was disappointed by a book’s character I firstly liked. This happened either when the character did something extremely stupid (and so I got frustrated because it was so easy to see it coming), or when the character did something against the values I support. In such a situation, I’m always wondering who’s right and who’s wrong, or if there is such a thing as the right choice. And there again, the author doesn’t take much space in the reader’s mind. At the moment of reception, his role is less important than the role of the hero, except if there are obvious autobiographical traits. But even then, I think that the reader still concentrates more on how the text he’s reading affects him.

Probably, it’s not very different with a blog. The blogger mainly has the role of a mediator and also seems rather abstract to me. Of course, I may see a part of what their life is like and what experiences they make through their eyes, but the blogger as an individual person remains an enigma for me. In the end, and again, it all comes down to just sharing stuff, may it be personal or not. And I will be glad if a few people like my texts. And if they don’t, well, they don’t.