Still fake blogging

It looks like I haven't been a productive writer because almost two months have passed since the last post, but I have been writing, just not here. I mentioned before that I have a fake blog, and I've even told people offline, but no one has read it. I don't even know if strangers have stumbled upon it because I can't see any stats. But even though I don't know if I have an audience, I've become pretty obsessed with it and post there once to a few times a week. And when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it, like what would the person be doing now, how is the person feeling, etc. I listen to people talk or they tell me what they've been doing, and the conversations give me ideas about what to write. I never thought I'd be so into writing fiction because I'm not a fiction-type of person, but it's sort of taken over my mind at times.

There are not many personal blogs out there anymore because people are posting their lives on social media, and blogs have become more informational than a form of journaling, which makes my pursuit seem anachronistic. Social media is fine, but it's not as deep as journal-type blogs were, and I miss that aspect of the internet. Online expression is more superficial and utilitarian now, and greed has taken over certain segments of the internet to the point where it's hard to find more authentic voices.

I do more practical posts at my podcast-related blog and post here, of course, but what I like about the fake blog is that I can do something personal in someone else's voice, and it's very satisfying and fun. I also have a way to channel my thoughts in an alternative world, which is very different from my real life. It's a way to offset rut-related feelings by imagining "What if..." to create a different path to explore.

If I were a gifted fiction writer and disciplined and driven about it, I'd try to write a book from my bloggy sketches, but right now, I just enjoy blogging. I don't know if other people feel the same way as I do, but I think the online writing world is not as interesting because long forms of expression exist in a different way, and have been replaced by short bursts of self-celebration. I sort of wish we could go back to the "good 'ol days" of the internet before the mercenaries took over, and I wonder if written creativity will continue to thrive for those who still want to bypass the professional gatekeepers.