Fri Jul 03,
2009,
14:14 GMT

Yesterday’s Shoot - The Bathroom Cam, Carl and Me

Posted by: Hal
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So yesterday the entire film crew came over, plus a few extra hands to work on making my basement look space age. We spent the morning setting things up and then filming me watching reality tv while director Sally lobbed questions on me. Then we had a serious on camera chat about what the hell I thought I was up to. I was much more relaxed and focussed then I’d been in the previous shoots, done before book tour. There’s nothing more stressful for a writer then the days right before their book is coming out. Now that the book is out and finding readers, I’m more relaxed and can focus on the documentary. So for the record, the reality tv clips we watched were from Moment of Truth, Cops, a Canadian show about women with money problems, and a British show called You Are What You Eat. That last show was particularly hilarious — it depicted a family of massive boozers who subsist almost entirely on take-always. Unlike wimpy North American reality tv, the “holistic nutritionist” brought in to counsel them wasted no time. You people are disgusting, she told them over and over again.

During lunch I squabbled with producer Jeannette about the schedule (I have to fly to Washington DC to do a night of storytelling I’m really excited about – unfortunately it’s in the middle of our trip to LA to go to reality tv boot camp [which I’m also really excited about], more on both of these subjects later on). Then it was back to my place, where a fellow named Carl arrived to install the surveillance cameras. Unfortunately, once again, I couldn’t help noticing that the surveillance cameras, which will be going live to broadcast the interior of my house to the web in about 10 days time, were not actually being installed. Carl turned out to be a handyman Jeanette had used around her house. He did drill some holes and install some camera bases, but it wasn’t quite the same as having someone come from Surveillance Cam Inc., especially when Carl started hamming it up and trying to “act” all official.

Nevertheless, we moved through the living room into the kitchen and decided where we should put the cameras. We had them hooked up to a monitor so I could actually see how much of each room they’d catch. I got pretty excited when we moved into the kitchen — I’m planning on having a daily cooking with Hal hour! Other plans I cooked up while the doc crew captured Carl pretending to install the cameras: story time with Hal (Hal tells stories from his checkered past), sing along with Hal song time (Hal plays guitar and makes a racket), and last but not least — chat time with special guest Orie (Hal’s brother calls and berates him for a minimum of ten minutes daily). Awesome! Why am I getting excited about this? My inner peep is emerging – scary.

My excitement dampened when we moved into the basement bathroom. The newly dubbed Can-Cam was being positioned by Carl and I suggested that maybe we should go for a kind of waist-up only vibe. Sally immediately chimed in — “But that’s what this is all about isn’t it? Challenging yourself to go further then you want, moving out of your comfort zone!” I didn’t want to be seen wimping out on the first day, so I assented to have the camera positioned in a way that would show everything to everyone. I mean, what the hell, right? Or wrong? I don’t know how I feel about it, really. Partly it’s just kind of stupid – does anybody really want to see me going to the bathroom? Well, I guess we’re going to find out.

Gotta run, today’s shoot is just about to get going. More soon.

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Thu Jul 02,
2009,
20:33 GMT

Anonymity Project: The PostSecret Effect

Posted by: Hal
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Here’s an interesting 5 minute video about why people send their secrets to PostSecret and read their embarrassing pubescent diaries out loud on stage at events like Mortified. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s well done and I like the focus on the “need for authenticity” and the idea that “new media create new ways of knowing ourselves.” It reminded me of the conversation I had with Frank Warren (creator of PostSecret) and how he told me that it really didn’t matter if all the secrets he gets in the mail are true or not, what matters is that we, the readers of the secrets, feel they are true.

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Thu Jul 02,
2009,
0:30 GMT

Do Writers Make Bad Bloggers?

Posted by: Hal
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The writer McKinley M. Hellenes is someone I’ve corresponded with in the past about my work and writing in general. She posted these thoughtful comments on my Facebook page and her blog. I’m reprinting them below with her permission. I think they are very astute in their observations about why writers make poor (personal) bloggers. Self censorship, self reflection, ongoing editing — all of those things are negatives. They take you out of yourself and keep you from being totally immediate and in the moment in your blog. At least, they do that to me. It’s like everything I’ve taught myself to do as a writer is now an imposition. Tomorrow, I’ll be entering the second phase of making the documentary and trying to get to the core of peep by peeping myself. I’ll be blogging several times a day, plus twitters, pics, videos and everything else I can think of. I’ll try to break through my inclinations to edit and hold back — will I be able to? We’ll see what happens.
Comments by McKinley M. Hellenes:
I’ve been thinking about the tenor of your blog voice, and your attempts to break down privacy barriers and truly write as *you* stripped bare and real and all of that. And I’ve been thinking about what it means to write in a truly intimate manner. And I was thinking that when you write your novels and stories, the voice you write in is infinitely more intimate than the voice you write in as yourself (emails, articles from your own POV, your blog). While I find those pieces interesting and intriguing, they do not move me. Why is that? I feel like they should. Like if I am getting a true glimpse of your actual, human life, I should be inordinately moved, somehow. But I’m not. And I think it’s because you hide behind your ideas emotionally-speaking. You don’t really emote in your blog. I feel like I want you to emote, like I should feel like there is this intense intimacy between me as a reader and your voice as a writer. I’m running out of space—will continue below…
Please excuse any typos—I’m staying up way too late to obsess about this. I’m going to keep talking in the comments section. Is this annoying? I thought it would be appropriate to make these messages public rather than sending a private message. Anyway, as I was saying…

Why can we as writers create such poignancy and intimacy in our fiction but not in our blogs? And people who are not writers are so capable of expressing themselves in a truly intimate way through their blogs? I’ve noticed this. I am way more squeamish in writing in my blog than so many of the blogs I read. I am trying to figure that out. And I keep reading your blog trying to find similarities. I feel like you are squeamish too. Why are we squeamish? We are writers. We’re supposed to be fearless. But I feel like I am learning that I want to write fearless things, but it doesn’t actually make me that way at all. I’m a liar and a thief by trade. How do I tell the truth about myself the way other people do?Maybe I can’t and never will. Maybe I traded that ability in for the gift of being able to write about other people’s truths and intimacies. Maybe I will never be able to tell the truth about myself. Do you think you are telling the truth about yourself? Sometimes I think I tell the truth about myself when I am not even talking about myself. When I am writing about someone who is nothing like me. Maybe a writer can’t do what you are trying to do, because we are too busy self-editing. I don’t think other people are compelled to do that. And that is why I love writing about them, love reading about them. They are so unselfconscious. Maybe you can’t do what you want to do with your blog consciously. It has to be reflexive. What do you think? Am I just tired and crazy at 1:00 AM, or am I managing to say something here? Tomorrow I will read this and be embarrassed, but in the interests of peep culture, I am going to stand by it. Anyways. All I was really trying to say when I started yapping was that I think you write so much about ideas that the messy truth of your life is sort of contained. You talk *about* full-disclosure but perhaps you don’t actually do it. Because you are too self-aware, and you are sort of dress-rehearsing, like “pretending” to watch TV and buy a phone. Is that at all accurate, I wonder? I don’t know. But I like this. It’s interesting. I wonder what will be the end result of it all. I am going to stop talking now. I feel oddly…exposed! There, that’s something. But I didn’t do anything but express an idea. I should have made some sort of deep dark confession. But I am far too squeamish. I can’t even do the 25 things about me thing. Ugh. Perish the thought! Good night. I’ll be reading the blog, lurking about. You might see me from the corner of your eye. These are not criticisms, just thoughts. Friendly observations out of true interest and wondering. Also, I apologize for the several glaring typos! I am even too squeamish to seem like a faulty grammarian in public! Ha

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The Bloggist

Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...