Writing and break-ups

There is this blog that I used to like so much. It belongs to someone who is a friend of a friend. I used to visit his site everyday because he is a great writer and I learn so many things from his posts. Just recently, I happen to lurk in his site again and I was shocked upon learning that he had stopped writing. According to his last post, he won't be writing for the meantime and he does not know when he'll write again because he is nursing a broken heart. Ouch. To think that I used to envy his fiancee because she was immortalized in his blog. AVM's experience has alerted me to the perils of divulging too much in a blog or in an online journal. What some writers don't realize is that they may be exposing too much of themselves when they blog. While it's just right to be honest about what you write, we must caution ourselves from being too carefree when we write about our emotions, our experiences, and even about the people we care about.

So, for those bloggers out there, here's two tips for saving your blog and your passion for writing after break-ups. I hope they make sense.

1. If you can help it, never ever blog about your relationships. Unless the person is already your spouse, it is wise to leave your love life out of your online journal. Let's face it, sooner or later, a relationship is bound to turn sour in the end and there's nothing more terrible than to delete most of your posts in order to finally move the person and his or her memories out of your life. And it's doubly terrible to delete the entire blog just because of this particular person.

2. When you're in the phase of grieving, again, if you can help it, don't talk about your emotions in your blog. It's much better to write down your feelings in a paper which you can keep or burn afterwards.