Announcements

Well, I tried using the blog for my morning pages, but that didn't quite work out. The problem is that morning pages and journals are things meant to be done in private--you need a place where you can fail bravely and write poorly. Someone asked George Gershwin how many songs he wrote in a week, and he replied, "I write 14 songs a day. That way, I can get the bad ones out of my system."

That's the theory behind a journal.

And so, I have purchased an old fashioned notebook that I'm going to try to fill with an old fashioned pen. (It really is old fashioned; I use a cartridge-type fountain pen I've had for I-don't-know-how-long.) It's the only way to go.

That leaves me with a bit of a blog problem. What to do with this blog? Today, I decided on a course of action.

A couple of things occurred to me. First, I realized that the problem with doing morning pages on a blog is the public nature of it. The little button on the screen I write these posts on says, "PUBLISH," and that is correct. Blogging is a form of self-publishing.

Second, I realized that I don't want to publish inferior product. Any writing of mine that ends up in public needs to be polished and the best that I can make it. My best posts here have parts that make me outright wince when I reread them and this comes from the posts having been written straight off the top of my head. This is not my best work nor at all what I am capable of.

After tossing these ideas around the old brainbox for a while, I came to the conclusion that the best use to which I could put this blog is turn it into a modern version of the periodicals that were popular in the 18th Century. I mean, what was good enough for Addison and Steele and Samuel Johnson ought to be good enough for the likes of me.

In the interest of full disclosure, the appearance of this idea was influenced by a flyer for a talk given at the university I currently work for by the person who blogs under the pseudonym BitchPhD. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and give her a link on the sidebar in recompense. I'm just that kind of guy.

Anyway. The end product of all this mulling is that, from now on, I plan to publish this blog once each week. Every Thursday I will publish an essay on whatever topic I deem worth writing about. This coming Thursday, for example, I hope to write something about my experiences as a blogger.

Topical stuff--the kind of writing that comes when I just have to blow off some steam because we're ruled by a gaggle of morons--will still get posted to Shooting Off My Fat Trap. Updates on the progress in the marketing and revision of my novel will appear at Michael Drayton, Detective Guy.

And all of my journaling will happen in private and on paper. See you on Thursday.