Notes on This Blog

General Considerations
This blog is organized around no particular theme. It reflects my interests as they bud, blossom, and fade, day-to-day.

I once heard that when writing fiction, it is important never to lose sight of the questions, "So what? And who cares? "If the writer doesn't deeply care about the writing, presumably nobody else will.

Besides the importance of the writer's emotional involvement in the writing, highlighted by those questions, compelling storytelling also depends some on artifice. I struggle with that.

For example, first-person writing that "works" is narrated, not by the author, but by a persona the author has created. For the writing to succeed, the persona has to be warm and engaging and coherent, with enough apparent self-awareness to be credible.

There are big, thorny areas of my life I don't feel I could possibly write about just now, because I could not muster the "coherence" or "self-awareness" necessary to make the writing appealing. I could not write at any length about the destructive, alienating dynamics in my family of origin, for instance. What I'd be doing, since I lack the distance from the subject matter that a writer needs to compose a good rant, or elegy, is whining. That's just one example.

So, pretty much any topic I broach here, has, to some degree, already been laid to rest in my life. But it doesn't yet bore me!

The Hermit's Blogging Standards and Etiquette
Blogging, as I see it, is about more than self-expression, it's also about connection with readers.

I am conscious that readers are investing time in my output. I try to publish material worthy of that time.

Don't get me wrong, I like to prattle about my personal life, or whatever else, online; I enjoy reading the "blurts" of other bloggers about how getting up this morning felt, how the AM coffee was, or the antics of the spouse, the dog, the administration in Washington, or whatever. This kind of thing is part of the "cozy" face of blogging. It's humans reaching out across the virtual void to other humans.

But, here's the rub: if a blog entry is to be longer than a few paragraphs, I like to have the sense it's been thought through before it was written out, or perhaps "cleaned up" after. I like to feel that the writer, through refining and crafting his or her material, has sought to respect the reader's time and energies. This is what I try to achieve in my own published writings.

Good and bad examples of what I mean abound online. Essay and commentary, penned to the writers' own standards of excellence, but without heed to anyone else's editorial whims, ranks among the treasure of the blogosphere. I have delighted in jewels I've found while trolling the links, on topics ranging from regard for the opposing viewpoint in a democracy, to caring for an invalid relative, to cosmetic surgery. On the other hand, I have sighed, gritting my teeth, when it dawns on me halfway through that somebody's lengthy effort is every bit as aimless and as half-baked as I feared it would be when I started reading.

Probably, I've written things that have struck readers as that ill-conceived. I certainly haven't meant to. Keeping my longer writings to a certain quality has become a paramount concern.

Blogging Process
Starting my own blog in December '03, I could not have imagined how my access to a regular audience would influence my creative development. When I first started to blog, I conceived of entries that were virtual "gossip over the back fence," or only slightly more refined than that.

Lately, I've put myself on a regimen of daily blogging, even if I manage only a paragraph or two. I cull through daily entries to find concepts that "grab" me, ones I feel I can work with further. Each week, I craft an essay, typically 1-2,000 words, that ends up in my sidebar links. On occasion, I delete a daily entry if it turns out to be "too similar" to the essay.

Not infrequently, I "groom" essays I've already linked to from the main page, going back to change wordings. I have even undertaken major revisions of work in this format, so if something has seemed to change drastically since the last time you peeked at it, it's not your imagination!

Blogging Impact
Blogging is so freeing because it lets the blogger write regularly for others' consumption, without having to meet elusive third-party "editorial standards," as one would trying to get published in a traditional venue. I am making a sharp distinction, not observed by all writers, between writing the writer intends others to read, and "private" writing, as for problem-solving and emotional release. The current explosion of venues for the former has barely begun to shape the contemporary face of literature, journalism, and letters in general.

Essay Categories
Though I did not consciously devise the category, a few of my very short pieces, for some interesting reason, fall easily under the heading "Origins." Besides the "Origins" pieces, I also publish other essays, of disparate subject matter. To distinguish them from the "Origins" pieces, I am lumping them under the heading of "Practicalities."

What is the "Origins" pieces' genre? Aphorism? Prose poem? Very short essay? I have referred to them variously as "prose poem" and "micro-essay," and maybe the truth lies somewhere amid these descriptions.

The "Culture of Blogger Acclaim" and My Blogroll
I've held off for a long time, creating a blogroll, because the blogroll can easily figure in a shallow "popularity" racket. Concerns about the blogroll strike at the larger question of how the individual blogger reckons healthily with the "culture of blogger acclaim."

OK, we're bloggers. To be drawn to this venue in the first place, we had to have a little bit of the egomaniac in us. We're at least somewhat concerned that we're being read and appreciated, and we may feel entitled to a following of a certain size and clamor, worthy of our perceived talents. But I, and any blogger I admire, balance anxieties about being read, against deep concern with the cultivation of unique voices, our own and others.'

I choose not to mind the hit counter, fearing that "how I'm doing" would become a neurotic preoccupation that takes energy away from what I see as the real work of blogging. Generally, I fear a healthy concern with individual expression can be trammeled, may in fact become increasingly obscured, by use of blogosphere features like hit-counters. I've noted with pique that certain bloggers looking to boost their own acclaim have appeared to live or die by hit-counters, actually jockeying to comment on, and blogroll, the most-read blogs on that particular server. Such naked sycophancy doesn't seem to be rampant in the blogosphere, fortunately. But it does illustrate the down-side of the blogger's inevitable quest for readers.

I have decided, on giving it some thought, to blogroll anyone whose blog, whose comments to my blog, or both, have fed me. I do this without heed to the blog's ranking on the hit-counter. I also do not distinguish, in my blogroll, between blogs I actually read frequently, and blogs I do not manage to visit much, but whose authors' comments to my own work I've greatly enjoyed.

Placement of Links
Some online writers seem to use hyperlinks almost as a substitute for footnotes. Maybe they legitimately take on this function in some instances.

Other writers pepper their work with hyperlinks, linking every minor reference, which I as a reader can find distracting.

Radio doesn't allow easy placement of hyperlinks. I hate placing them manually, with code. I use them sparingly, only when clarity or politeness calls for them.

My Outside Links
So far, I've linked to any person or movement whose efforts have impressed me enough to keep me awake at night, drawing connections, at any time during my adult life. The list so far has been compiled off the top of my head and is cursory. It will undoubtedly grow, as more influential thinkers and schools occur to me.