Pardon the dust. I’m still tweaking the site and the underlying code a bit to clean it up.
As the inaugural post for my second attempt at starting a blog, the first question I have to ask is “Why am I doing this?” Honestly, I don’t know. After the failure of my first blog (the old Blogspot one) that eventually led to me taking it down, the question should probably be “Why am I doing this again?” Good question! Give myself a gold star! To answer that, it has to be broken down into two parts: What went wrong the first time, and what’s different now?
What went wrong the first time, you might ask (or not; I don’t think anyone really cared the first time around, or is necessarily reading this now. Hello? Am I talking to me? Am I talking to me?). The first problem with the old blog was that it didn’t feel like it had much of a point. When the author of the blog feels that way, there’s definitely something wrong. Without such a point, I inevitably lost interest. The final post happened to be shortly after the 2008 election and during the 2008 National Novel Writing Month, which I was using to make a big push on writing my novel which is still unfinished, although I am still working on it. There was too much going on at the time, and NaNoWriMo was sucking up most of my energy. Seriously, if you’ve never done it, it can get really exhausting. With everything going on, I got too distracted, the blog fell by the wayside, and I lost interest in it completely as I focused my efforts and writing energies to other areas. Finally, after about two years, I accepted that I would not be updating that blog again and took it down altogether, deciding that if I blogged again, I would just start over. The thing never really got off the ground and pretty much died in its infancy, so I wasn’t all that heartbroken as I wasn’t that invested in it.
But why wasn’t I invested? There’s also the whole problem of why anyone would want to read what I’m writing. No seriously, why are you reading this? If you’ve gotten this far, I have to assume that I already know you, and even then if you’ve gotten through this rant up to now, you’re a real trooper, a loyal friend, and/or have no life and already seen every silly cat video on YouTube. The thing is that even I didn’t want to read my old blog. Like I said, it felt pointless and without direction to me. That is not a good thing to feel about your own work. I’m sure some other writers have felt that way at one time or another. A source of writer’s block? Maybe. It was followed by a long dry spell from my writing in general. Finally, it just stopped being fun. Wait, scratch that. It was never fun to begin with! If I’m going to invest myself in something like that, then I need to get some kind of fulfillment out of it, but with every post, it felt more like I was forcing the whole thing because I should, but never liked doing it. I forgot the fun!
So what’s changed and why am I trying again? Well, as Yoda says, “Do or do not! There is no try.” A few things have changed, not just with me but with the internet landscape in general. I’m older, wiser, and have a little more direction in my life now, even in this short time. I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s how it usually works. People don’t mature gradually over time, but rather do it in bursts, usually brought on by major changes. And things have changed, although I won’t go into all the personal details. But there’s been two major changes that I can cite as being the impetus for a new blog. One is that I have girlfriend who has been trying to push me to write steadily again. As I’m sure many will attest to, having a significant other that pushes and encourages you can be a huge benefit, even when you don’t want to do something. She’s seen how unhappy I get when I’m not practicing my art. The second is simply that it’s time to start again. After my dismal failure during NaNoWriMo last year, and my disappointment at where my novel had been going for a while, the writing bug and the very essence of my being was in danger of suffering a slow, painful death. However, I recently got involved with a couple programs that let me write reviews for advanced copies or recently released books. Having the opportunity to write about something again, even if it’s not my first choice of subjects, has stirred those creative juices, and reawakened that soul which was shriveling up and dying. Besides, with all the life changes, I feel like have stuff to write about again.
That was personal, but what’s changed on the internet landscape? Mainly that social media has really come into its own in the last couple of years. Sharing and information aggregation has become much, much easier. Facebook has matured (although they’ve all but neutered apps or customizing the wall; I’ll think about discussing this later), I’ve joined Twitter, Google+ has been introduced but needs an API desperately, and social media overall has grown up and interconnects much more easily. This was a problem before for me. It felt like a pain to have to go through each system individually. I can be extraordinarily lazy that way. But now everything talks to each other easily and I don’t have to do anything but set it up. All hail our new robot overlords!
Where am I going to go with this new blog? I’m not sure yet. Uh oh! Yes, I know that it sounds like it’s probably self-defeating to already acknowledge a similar problem to the old blog already, but the difference is that I have stuff to write about again. I’ll probably post book reviews (which will also get posted in other places, but most authors don’t mind the extra publicity; the more places you and your work get mentioned on the internet, the better), and I do those on a fairly regular basis now. I’ll mention personal developments, if you care. I’ll mention games I’m playing, as I recently got back into tabletop gaming. I’ll mention progress on my novel, which I’ve recently picked back up and am pretty much rewriting at this point. Whatever I feel like at the time. It’ll be my completely self-serving and self-aggrandizing corner of the internet. You are on my land and I am your king! Kneel before Zod! Ahem…anyway, as I was saying, I have stuff to write about. Don’t worry, I’ll try to tag posts so that all two of you who are going to read this blog will be able to sort out the stuff you’re interested in. I’m going to make sure it’s at least fun this time, which should make it interesting as a result.
Welcome! Have fun! Sit a spell! Another update will come soon. I promise!
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