An Apology and a New Start

Hello lovely people,

It is about time I gave you an apology for abandoning this blog for so long. So a GIANT APOLOGY to you. I had high hopes for blogging; I love writing, have long wanted to do more of it, and was far away and missing you all, so a blog seemed like a good idea. But I found it to be a strange blend of the public and private spheres. I've never had much of a public life; I'm much more comfortable with personal conversations than any kind of mass communication. So as my personal life took over my thoughts in a big way this summer - in a good way I promise - I struggled to decide how much to write, how much to share in this venue. Add that to the fact that I am a slow writer at the best of times and I stopped writing.

Anyway, at the very least, I owe you a conclusion (or maybe a continuation, who knows) to the whole arts-civilization story, if you're still interested. I did eventually manage to synthesize all of your ideas into some sort of personal understanding, which I wrote about in an article for the "Creativity" issue of Blueprint, our very awesome campus magazine at WLU. So I'll share it with you by linking it here. As usual please comment away! And definitely check out all of the other articles and artwork - it's an absolutely beautiful issue with lots of food for thought to give.

So for now I think I'll use this blog for sharing the writing I'm doing in other contexts. I used to use facebook for this, but I have heard some slightly creepy things about facebook owning the rights to all material posted, so I think I'm going to stop that. The day when somebody pays me for my work is a long time away, but I still like the idea of retaining ownership over what I write. So I will post articles here, or links to them if they have an online presence already, and maybe some poetry if I'm feeling brave. I also may post links to other blogs I am reading if I think the general "you" would be interested. And who knows, maybe I will gradually become more comfortable with the blog format, in which case there may be occasional actual blog posts, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. As always, I invite you to comment on anything posted here. Or if you want to write a full-length post, just email it to me at lauren.smee@gmail.com and I will post it. I would be thrilled if this became the fertile forum for discussion that it was for a week or so in May.

All of that being said, I do want to share one short story. Earlier this summer I was reunited with one of my very oldest and closest friends after she spent the better part of a year overseas. I spent a few days at a cottage with her family and one of her family-members was reading The Cellist of Sarajevo. So I mentioned it at dinner and told them about the controversy over whether the author should have asked the cellist's permission, and it sparked a lively debate about the rights and responsibilities of artists. So I would like to formally reopen this topic and invite everyone from that dinner-table-discussion to share their thoughts.

Much love to all of you,
Lauren