How It All Began

“If you tango every night for a year, and you blog about it, you will get a book deal,” Carleen said.

We were having coffee in my office. That's how the whole thing started: a couple of editors shooting the breeze.

I already have both, I told her. I started the blog the morning after my first tango lesson. I add to it every day.

No, you can’t read it, I told her. It’s not an actual blog-blog. I mean, it’s not published. I don’t need an audience to complete me.

“If you don’t publish, it’s not a blog. It’s a journal.”

Grrr. She’s right. Here’s why:

The presence of the observer influences the outcome of the experiment. Every scientist knows that. The same is true of writing: the presence of the reader influences the story—both the manner of telling and the content. And not only that: Upon receiving and interpreting the story, the reader completes it.

How would that play out if the story I am telling is my own story, as it happens? Memoir in the moment. How much would awareness of the presence of readers influence my story? Even more intriguing: How does the presence of the self-aware observer (that would be me) influence the story (that would be my life) – as it happens?

Would I do things differently, just to create experiences to report in the blog? Would I pull my punches to avoid too much honesty, too much exposure?


Last year at this very time (6:30 p.m. as I write this), Melinda was plying me with food and liquor.

Let’s do it! she said. She created the template. I cut and pasted my text into the boxes.

“Hit Publish,” she prompted.

Then urged.

Then urged again.

How could I say? I had exactly the same free-falling feel in my stomach that I had the day I moved in with Keith. This is a Threshold.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Melinda, the ABD in religion and pop culture, said, and leaned across and punched Publish.

I squealed.

First thing the next day, I took down the post. Replaced it with something less honest.

How the reader influences the story.