On Blogging

Someone (Caleb J. Ross--http://www.calebjross.com/) once (a couple weeks ago) told me that it's important for a writer to have an online presence--to have something worthwhile to say to the community at large, perhaps to fans or could-be fans in specific. In his (fairly successful, I might add) career as a writer so far, he said that he tries to post something of worth at least once every few days. Otherwise, he noted, the reading community might forget about him.

I'm not always the best at remembering to post things to this blog (I still have issues with the term 'blog'; there should be a better term for this), to keep people updated on things, but I've decided to make an effort. Not to say the effort will bring any real or lasting success. But my goal is to post something every few days, to ensure I am in the habit of writing something (even if it's not working toward novelization) more frequently than I have been. So, I suppose you'll have that to look forward to, if you look forward to that type of thing.

I will try to make it worth the time it takes to read. Feel free to give feedback--especially questions. Questions, I've noticed, tend toward forcing conversation. And, another thing I've noticed, sometimes it takes a bit of force for me, personally, to become invested in a conversation. Sometimes I need to be asked something, or I will stop paying attention. Anyone else do that?

Hectic

Well now, son. What do you think you're doing here? I don't even have a son. Not that I'm disowning you. You simply don't exist...I suppose you have a point--if you don't exist, who am I talking to? I suppose I'm talking to Ben Wiebeck. Not to you, imaginary son. Ben, you're unofficially adopted, even though you already have parents. To make it official, I'll have to discuss it with Juliet (some legality issues about a non-joint parent filing joint tax returns). Back into it, I guess...

Well now, Ben. That is, Ben and the others who actually read this. Here's the recentness:

I have started working at that online university. It takes up a lot of time, on top of that other lot of time taken up by Emporia State teaching and grading. Most of my time has been claimed by this stuff. I like free time, but I don't seem to have any left. Bah, well. I've always needed to force myself into productivity, so this will have to suffice for the time being.

I'm currently listening to Lowry's free-to-listen-to album Emporia. Thanks, Timothy. It's helping as I grade all these papers on the computer. Oh, I'm also currently grading all these papers on the computer for that online university. All these papers. Lots of all these papers.

Recently, as often occurs, I've been mostly in one of the following moods:

• Wanting a recording studio and related accoutrements; I'm developing a lot of song ideas, but I need to have some way to record and mix tracks for it to work right. (I'd also need a bit more free time.)
• Wanting to write a screenplay--actually working on this one currently (more time would definitely help here).
• Feeling like I should be working on my novel(s). Feel free to reference Family Guy here. This one's not happening much of late, but I have been finding good inspiration in a number of places--most recently, from Caleb J. Ross (a Kansas City based writer who went to ESU...uh, Timothy, get in touch with this guy, for the following reasons: his stuff is more literary, but it's good, he seems very open to getting to know other writers, he's a bit obsessed with SEO and having an online presence as a writer, I think you'd get along well, and once Denis Johnson almost drank his pee).
• Wanting to travel. Anywhere. And sleep in while I'm wherever I end up. Sometimes getting up early, because sunrises; but usually sleeping in.

Probably some other stuff could go in that list as well, but I do need to get back to grading, so I can get some semblance of a few hours' sleep before I have to go teach the face-to-face classes I teach on Fridays.

Oh, also, hi Juliet. Hi Adam. (I felt I should say hello to my more avid readers/commenters, so there you go; there aren't many of you, at least not yet...if there were a great many more, I wouldn't be able to recall everyone's name. So, good job getting in on the name-y action.)

What's going on for you people of late?

jdf