I want to take a minute and comment on what I have learned from my mock thesis defense and from my latest post that goes over a draft of my final essay in my collection, "Snot and Untold Stories." The mock thesis defense was done as a final presentation in my Thesis Writing class. Another student who acted as my representative contacted Professor Burton and received some good questions to ask me, one of which was this: how do I justify spending valuable time blogging and focusing on the digital component of my thesis when I could spend that time doing much-needed revising?
It is a good question, and after my latest post highlighting concerns with my essay I am more equipped to answer it.
Since posting my latest draft, I have received a few great comments with invaluable feedback. While I admit I have not had as many people comment as I would have liked, the comments I did receive were incredible. Shara, who I connected with while in India, took a good chunk of time to give me some much-needed suggestions. Had I not blogged about this draft, I would not have received that feedback. In this case, blogging has actually aided me in the traditional revision process.
A second, less obvious benefit to blogging that I have discovered within the last few weeks, has been that I am held accountable to a "real" audience. Within a day after posting my essay, the German friend I met on the bus mentioned in my essay, who I renamed Charley, contacted me and mentioned he read it. My initial reaction was concern. Had I really represented him accurately? For all of my talk of authenticity, was I holding to it? The truth is I fused a little bit of a later conversation I had with a history major friend to include a few of the Vietnam details. By having this post I am acknowledging the fragile nature of storytelling while also being held accountable to an immediate audience. This is not available in mainstream publishing.
In conclusion, while blogging and adding this digital component of my thesis can be time consuming and daunting, I am glad to have done it. At the end of the day I would rather have my ideas shared and available to read than have them be perfect.
(Photo credit goes to cs.cmu.edu)
Just wanted you to know that I am launching a kickstarter project for a book I want to publish of writing and photography. It was thinking about your avatar concept about how we see the world differently with different parts of our personality and careers that gave me kind of an epiphany about how I document the world. When I write, I write about all the sadness and suffering and that's what I "see" in words. When I photograph, I shoot postcard-type images, the beautiful things whether it's architecture or nature and I see beauty in image. My book idea is to balance this duality. So anyway, know that your project really had an impact on me and mine. I'll be launching it next week, but I have a FAQ online if you're interested in checking it out. Once it's live (hopefully next week), if you feel inspired to share it with your friends, I wouldn't complain. 
