More Changes!?

Recently being asked to write an article for a publication made me appreciate more the techniques and subtitles of writing well. I have begun to love the written word. It’s not that I’ve had contempt for writing its hard to appreciate something that you can’t see and because you can’t see it it takes more energy to do it. An excuse, yes, since that’s the truth for most things I do or don’t do. Now I’m willing to invest the time to write, well, or at least good. Actually, I have to be honest I have had contempt for language both written and spoke. Presenting to large audiences and singing has given me love for the spoken language. Publishing this blog has finally given me an appreciation and loved for the written word.
As with anyone I can only communicate what I’m ready to share. I don’t mind if your feedback is to call bullshit on a topic. There are many things I struggle with and share knowing that I’m not totally comfortable with and issue. My comfort with an issue is apparent to me when I write about topics multiple times. I sometimes share the journey to show my own growth as a person.
I’ve invested in some new tools for writing including: Scrivener, and Grammarian, I still use Pages and Rapid Weaver as well. Yes I use a MAC. My publishing workflow now includes many new steps from brainstorming to multiple reviews before publication. The hope is that the new tools as well as having someone to provide one on one coaching will improve the quality of my posts by improving my ability to express my ideas in the written word. That’s the hope, it’s only taken me three years of publishing this blog to open my eye’s to the quality of my writing and do something about it.
My readers are polite. I think writing about a topic that is fundamentally taboo helps as the feedback about my writing amounts to about one email a year. My goal is to eliminate that one email entirely. I suppose I could just stop publishing the blog, not yet, there is more ground to cover. In some ways, I’ve resisted the feedback on my writing. I’ve made excuses to myself that it’s maybe because of my disability that I write differently, or poorly. I’ve come to accept that my thoughts have been no more than elaborate ruses making elaborate rationalizations for why I haven’t invested the time and energy to write better. A dangerous place to be with a disability, it’s really easy to talk yourself out of anything. It’s annoying that with a “disability” you are allowed to fail and feel good about it.
I met with a consultant a few months ago. I wanted to get some feedback on the blog and determine where to take it. I’ve struggled, my original intent for the blog was to reach out to my family of origin and share what I had learned and start the conversation. I had no idea that disability and family together were such a taboo topic. As I wrote about my experience with blindness, I realized my experience with my disability were not unlike others with disabilities of all kinds. With that thought it was easy to extend the focus of the blog to all disabilities. Separating the personal, family and cultural issue of a disability and the logistics of being disabled. The logistics of how do you live, how do you do things, how do you accommodate yourself and your disability? Then my thinking grew again and I realized the issues I face as a person with a disability is the same issues that will all face at some point in our lives. My family of origin isn’t interested in a conversation, but many others are, or if not interested in a conversation, they are interested in at least a commentary.
There are several posts that I’ve held onto for a long time just to make sure my thinking on the issues was as clear as I wanted them to be. I was kind of nice to have a blog to publicly journal, or to bitch and moan. But, bitching and moaning is lame, although we all need to do it occasionally. I know I’m guilty of it. The cool thing is that I am reaching people, all people, people who are disabled and people who are not yet classified through age, illness, or accident, as disabled. A book I’ve read calls those people TAB’s, “Temporarily Able Bodied.” Reaching everyone gives you much latitude as you can speak with everyone about the experience we all share, the human experience.
My consultant friend asked me who are my audiences? It sounds like a simple question, but it isn’t. Its taken months since this conversation to answer the question, I finally think I’ve figured it out. My largest audience is TAB’s. When I look at the searches used to find the blog most of them are from TAB’s trying to figure out how to deal with disabled people, like were leapers, or something. The other thought is a bit morbid, but people generally are fascinated with disability disease and death. Rubbernecking an accident scene seems to be universal, yes I think there are some readers who are, morbid. People, all people seem to have a fascination with death, disease, and disability. My theory is that we are trying to figure out how we’ll deal with it when it’s are turn, after all, all these constructs are inevitable, for all of us. The other audience I already have is the disabled or blind people, it’s a wonderful thing to share experiences. What’s worked, what hasn’t and what can be learned from a success or failure in advocacy. I know from my website statistics that I have a large audience, but I’m still not sure on the percentages between TAB’s and non TAB’s, I’ll guess currently about an even split between the two.
The point of all this mumbling is to try to explain all the changes to the blog Since I need to appeal to both a disabled and TAB audience, experiences need to be provided for both. I am expanding the blog to include many photographs and videos as well as the text based blog itself. I’ve tinkered with doing podcasts but to be frank they seem to be of lower value to audiences in comparison with video. I continually have accessibility on my mind to all the content on the site, and I promise to do my best to accommodate everyone.
There have been several technical issues with the blog this month. My hosting service has had to deal with some significant issues. I’ve had to struggle with some technical and non technical issues. Blindmancan.com Has been at a crossroad for a couple of months but this month I’ve taken a step back and choose the approach I want to take moving forward. The changes I’ve made to the blog and the changes I have planned will hopefully meet the needs of the audiences that access the content. I’ll keep monitoring the numbers, sometimes I’m compelled to write about a search topic that has brought someone to the blog. Generally I’ll keep plugging away, Suggestions and interaction are always welcome, your continued consumption of the context is very much appreciated.