I've been spouting opinions since 1985.

Ever since I was a child I had opinions.

“Nobody cool lives in Orlando!”

“Call me Miss Jackson, if you’re nasty.”

“Hawaiian shirts are totally cool.”

As the middle child, you’re always trying to get your two cents in…but no one is listening or taking you seriously (don’t worry, I shall not digress into a boo-hoo, woe is me diary entry!). Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, I didn’t have a blog to express my opinions – I had a good old fashioned diary, my own bedroom in the suburbs and a five CD changer that blared tracks like “Mountain Song” by Jane’s Addiction:

I met a child, man, she had pin eyes
We had the same opinion
We had the same opinion
She was holding it back
It hurt so bad
Jumping out of my flesh
And I said

You better cash in!

Less than a decade later, the Internet came along and BAM! All of a sudden us middle children have a place where we can turn to express our every asinine opinion…AND the possibility that someone might actually READ it…and then RESPOND to it…FINALLY, validation! FINALLY, someone in this overpopulated world gives a CRAP about YOUR little opinion. This cathartic moment in life is just like, well….ummmm, hmmm -

I am at a loss for words. It’s not something easily expressed with L-E-T-T-E-Rs, because there are other senses involved. It’s more like a music video – moving images, crescendoes, silence, syncopated rhythms and beats…the particular song I am thinking of is called “Roads Become Rivers (Rivers Become Oceans)” by Four Tet & Rothko. You can find it in the iTunes Store.

After someone has connected with your words, all you can hear is music as you walk down the street (well, maybe this is because I’ve got my iPhone constantly attached to my head). But seriously – even when I’ve got the music off, I’m still hearing it and flowing as if everything is scripted. For example, last night, as I was sitting at the Caltrain station waiting for the next train back to San Francisco from Palo Alto, I had a fleeting thought that I should call the Indigo Fairy to get her brother’s phone number so I can see him before I return to Miami. I boarded the train, sat next to a window and one stop later, as the conductor was collecting tickets, I looked up at the next level and who do I see?

The Indigo Fairy’s brother.

Huh? What?

Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. When you WRITE YOUR LIFE, the original slogan I used for Biscayne Writers when I incorporated it in 2005, these are the kinds of things that happen. My theory, though, is that not EVERYONE can do this. Only those who are TRUE writers, the ones whose calling is nothing else but to write about their experiences, opinions and observations of this human experience, have this ability.

But that’s just my opinion. What’s yours?

Read more about the concept of Link Baiting.

Read more about blogging for money.

Words by Melanie Feliciano.