Discussion with Mom (email)

Mom said: "Wow! Your blog is very interesting today. What is it you are fighting so hard to hide? I thought the things you have been writing and arting have been expressions of things you wanted to express?"

Toni answered: "Too much self-editing goes on when I know people will see and/or read my stuff. Like: I prefer to do more nudes, write more erotically, express my loneliness and/or isolation and/or pissed-off-ness as those moods occur. So maybe it's not 'hiding' so much as just being 'kind' to potential readers who (as I mentioned on the blog) don't realize a mood is transitory, not permanent."

Mom replied: "Yeah, well I can understand that you wouldn't want every blog reader to read your most intimate stuff. And I don't think they really want to, either. Best to put that in your private journals probably. Many people are embarrassed by intimacy anyway."

Toni confessed: "I'm mostly just on my own case for finding ANY excuse and EVERY excuse not to get down to some serious journaling, the kind nobody needs to or will see ... I've been feeling like a performing monkey lately, trying to produce to post onto the blog, when that's NOT my point. It's fun when it's spontaneous, and it's an easy central way for everyone to see my art when I want them to. But it's gotta be secondary to me being able to write, or art, me-for-me."

Mom sums it up [& also leaves me feeling positive, again]: "Well, the blog was a new medium you had to try. Now you are beginning to find out exactly what you do and don't want to use it for. Nothing wrong with that. I do think you have wonderful writing skills...and also art skills. So, it is hard for you to condense down into what really matters to you. You are one of those multi-talented folks who has to deal with being too talented. Not an easy task."