My Blogging Process: From Secret Code to Public Blog

Throughout my life I have, at times, kept diaries. I go years without keeping a diary, then I’ll go a couple of years keeping one.

This post is a glimpse behind the velvet curtain into the some of the thought processes and work that goes into creating a blog entry.

Early diaries

When I was young I kept diaries. They were written in a sort of code based on Tolkien’s elvish script. They were phonetic in nature. Those early diaries were mostly a place for me vent the various ways in which my dad hurt me.

However, even in code, I couldn’t write that I was afraid I was gay.

Those diaries are lost to me now, thrown away. I had forgotten how you read them.

While I was in Al Anon I kept a diary for a while. I wasn’t very good at reflecting, but at least I tried. I do not know why I stopped keeping them – possibly because I wasn’t doing it daily.

Welcome to the blogosphere

My blog started as an irregular emotional brain dump within the private space of the Eunuch Archive. Somehow I got the impression that it wasn’t going to be safe, so I began to duplicate the entries into a WordPress site (this one). Sure enough, I was eventually evicted from the Archive.

I create regular backups of the blog just in case. Some of the topics that I cover are perhaps a little edgy.

Early posts were all to do with coming to terms with my dysphoria. Struggling with what seemed irrational – crazy – I received a lot of support from people assuring me that I wasn’t crazy and that they understood my feelings.

Things were proof-read by me, and I didn’t do a very good job of it! When I re-read some of these early posts, there are sections I cannot make head nor tail of!

When I went for surgery I started keeping daily records for the first time. I thought that my experiences might help others like me. I didn’t expect that I would enjoy keeping a blog as much as I do, nor that I would get so much from it.

This post was going to be over 2,500 words, so I have split it into three: “The Types of Posts I Write” and “Behind the Scenes”.