The Thing With Writing Is...

OK, well...hmmm...to be truthful or not? The thing with writing is it can be so selective and manipulative.  The writer has total control over what they would like their  audience to know and be left with after they've read the last word of the article, book or blog post.

Take our Biscuiteering day for example. I could say something like:

 We had so much fun making biscuits with our cherubs and watching the joy on their faces as they whisked and mixed and cut shapes into the soft, buttery dough. The delight on their faces was a sight to be hold as they iced their treats making their biscuits come to life.

{Which I have, pretty much, already clearly stated in past posts. We really  did have fun}.

Or, I could be a little more honest and not leave out the other bits. Things like:

As we waited a heck of a long time for the dough to cool in the fridge and the bikkies to cook and the icing to be made, Meily had many a melt down  over the 'slowness' of the whole process. Lewi mentioned that he was tired and needed to go home  before we'd even got to the icing part.

or this...

Sarah and I felt our hearts sink as we opened the oven to find our biscuits to be  WAY too fat and risen. They no longer resembled the items we had started with when the dough was uncooked.  We could tell trouble was a brewing.

or this...

On calming our children and helping them refocus on the fun that was about to be had, we each began to decorate our soon to be masterpieces. The kids decorated with ease. Their biscuits looked fantastic. Not too fussy and really, really cool colours.

It was a different story for Sarah and I. We said a few not-so-choice words as we struggled to get that darn icing to obey us. It really does have a mind of it's own. We went through quite a few biscuits, initially thinking we'd have 4 lovely little samples to take along  to Candelo Books for the Biscuiteers competition. But alas, this was not to be. Sarah battled to get one on the plate. I got 2, only because mine was a theme that had to really have both biscuits present.

or this...

Sarah's expectations were WAAAYYY too high. Even after I mentioned to her how hard the icing thing was {I started before her} she could not be told until she felt the experience for herself. She soon felt it and I got the empathy I truly needed at the time.

or this...

We both feel that we have now experienced  the true Master Chef moment. The crying, the  screaming the  swearing about how hopeless it all was and how we'll never get anything on the plate and how that darn icing will not submit!

I am often torn when I'm writing  as there are many, many occasions when another side to the situation is also present and has the potential to be shared and noted. It's usually the uglier, not so sweet side that I wonder whether I should also be recording or, at the very least, acknowledging. Personally, I like the WHOLE truth. I like the sickly sweet stories OK but I'd much rather hear about  other side, the 'real' side. It's usually the side that is funny too. There's something about 'failure' stories or stories which show the uglier, not so pretty reality of a situation, that empowers me and makes me feel so much less of a loser. I love feeling like I'm not the only one.  I love to hear that others are suffered right along with me. Sick, I know.

I struggle, as a blogger and a wanna-be writer. I struggle with the pull of what to tell? Do I tell it all? Do I tell it in part? Do I tell it from this angle? Or that angle? I struggle with the image that we can set ourselves up to having.

I was talking with friends {a married couple}  the other day and one of them mentioned that the other one had called her blog 'pretentious' {he didn't actually use that particular word but I'm choosing not to use the not-so-choice word he actually used...Ha..There! Right there! Another display of truth or other side of truth!}. He did back-track and take the word back but the damage was already done - now, never to be forgotten and ready to be brought up at any given  and much needed moment during marital  argumenting time. {For the record, I do not think her blog is in any way pretentious. I think he's really just not that into blogs}.

It got me really thinking about my own blog though. It's something I've worried about in the past ~ pretentiousness. I think it's something that I'm drawn to for some annoying reason yet I can't stand it. I love realness and truth.  I love humour and finding the funny side in a situation. But I do tend to have this disgustingly self-righteous element to my personality that slips out in my writing at times. Argh!

So my mission ~ be as truthful and real as possible. Be funny if I can. Simple. It's not as easy as it sounds though. It's  the sort of stuff I like to read so I need to be true to that for myself. It's what I love so much about shows like Seinfeld and writer's like Catherine Therese and Mia Freedman.

Onwards and upwards, truthful and real...