Sunday blather
It's a mission of this blog to publish everyday. Some would say that's a bad thing, that you ought to publish when you have something to say. And I can see where that's completely reasonable from a reader's point-of-view: when I write an entry like this one, kvetching1 over being at a loss for words, I'm arguably wasting your time, though frankly I don't see why you can't stop reading any time you want. (Great, now I've lost my entire small audience.)
But what this does accomplish, from my end of it, is that I am engaging myself in this "blogging" activity, which may mean writing something, which hypothetically translates into me, I don't know, maybe mobilizing myself to go do whatever "real" writing I'm supposedly engaged in. (Or encourages me to share photos I took. Although I guess I can't see what a YouTube video does, except maybe spread some of my love for whatever.)
No, I'm not sure it actually works that way, either.
I did try. Normally, actually, I'm pre-posting and I'm ahead (this is part of Giant Midgets normally updating 'round midnight). Yesterday, though, yesterday I struggled. I tried, I really did. The folks who license the patent on MP3s did something interesting and stupid and useless (nothing mean, in fact they were trying to be helpful), and I started a post about that... nope. There were some bits of political outrageousness that got my dander up... nothing came of that, either. So I find myself at one p.m. today with no new entry up, and no likely entry for Monday right now (maybe another Five Photos entry will be on its way, I guess).
Not sure what's going on, why the juices aren't flowing as they should. Yesterday it rained all day, a miserable torrential rain that kept me in for much of the day, though I did stop on Central Avenue for a nice old-school breakfast at John's Country Kitchen on Central after picking up a package at the Post Office. When I got home, coffeed up and everything, I was raring to write and instead ended up finishing Spook Country2 and playing a videogame all day. It wasn't even a good videogame session: turned out the Neverwinter Nights module I was playing--which looked excellent--didn't actually have a path for evil characters and I suddenly found myself at a point where the module became unplayable. So it was just kind of a wasted day, not a bad day, but an ineffectual one, if that makes any sense.
It was supposed to rain all week, but today's storms didn't show up. It's sunny and windy, and so I wrote off my omelet plans in favor of a bowl of oatmeal and a trek down to Smelly Cat for an out-of-the-house experience and maybe we'll see if I can get something done. I've been doodling with a kind of generic fantasy story--the horror novel was just out of control, so I've put it on the back of the stove (I think I mentioned that last week). I can't really tell if the current story is stupid or not. I have a feeling it might be, but I think it's more important to try to write something stupid if the alternative is not writing.
And that, dear readers, or reader if I've lost some of you, or dear howling oblivion of cyberspace, if that's all that stuck it through to the penultimate paragraph, is where we're at today. And I do apologize if it wasn't erudite or clever or funny, but it did get me typing for ten or fifteen minutes.
Hope you're being more productive than I am, and good Sunday, everybody.
1Say, "kvetch" is Yiddish, right? So should I italicize it as a foreign word? "Kvetch" instead of "kvetch."
I oughta write a style manual for myself one of these days.
2By the way, and this is so fucking strange: I knew William Gibson told The Onion a while back that he had "stopped" writing SF (those quotation marks will make sense in a moment). What I hadn't quite grokked was that he's still writing the exact same kinds of books he's been writing for twenty years. I mean, he had a great comment to exactly that effect, but it wasn't until I closed the cover on Spook Country that I really got it--it's classic Gibson, but now the world's caught up with the guy.
How long 'til his stuff essentially becomes historical fiction taking place in the present, I want to know.
But what this does accomplish, from my end of it, is that I am engaging myself in this "blogging" activity, which may mean writing something, which hypothetically translates into me, I don't know, maybe mobilizing myself to go do whatever "real" writing I'm supposedly engaged in. (Or encourages me to share photos I took. Although I guess I can't see what a YouTube video does, except maybe spread some of my love for whatever.)
No, I'm not sure it actually works that way, either.
I did try. Normally, actually, I'm pre-posting and I'm ahead (this is part of Giant Midgets normally updating 'round midnight). Yesterday, though, yesterday I struggled. I tried, I really did. The folks who license the patent on MP3s did something interesting and stupid and useless (nothing mean, in fact they were trying to be helpful), and I started a post about that... nope. There were some bits of political outrageousness that got my dander up... nothing came of that, either. So I find myself at one p.m. today with no new entry up, and no likely entry for Monday right now (maybe another Five Photos entry will be on its way, I guess).
Not sure what's going on, why the juices aren't flowing as they should. Yesterday it rained all day, a miserable torrential rain that kept me in for much of the day, though I did stop on Central Avenue for a nice old-school breakfast at John's Country Kitchen on Central after picking up a package at the Post Office. When I got home, coffeed up and everything, I was raring to write and instead ended up finishing Spook Country2 and playing a videogame all day. It wasn't even a good videogame session: turned out the Neverwinter Nights module I was playing--which looked excellent--didn't actually have a path for evil characters and I suddenly found myself at a point where the module became unplayable. So it was just kind of a wasted day, not a bad day, but an ineffectual one, if that makes any sense.
It was supposed to rain all week, but today's storms didn't show up. It's sunny and windy, and so I wrote off my omelet plans in favor of a bowl of oatmeal and a trek down to Smelly Cat for an out-of-the-house experience and maybe we'll see if I can get something done. I've been doodling with a kind of generic fantasy story--the horror novel was just out of control, so I've put it on the back of the stove (I think I mentioned that last week). I can't really tell if the current story is stupid or not. I have a feeling it might be, but I think it's more important to try to write something stupid if the alternative is not writing.
And that, dear readers, or reader if I've lost some of you, or dear howling oblivion of cyberspace, if that's all that stuck it through to the penultimate paragraph, is where we're at today. And I do apologize if it wasn't erudite or clever or funny, but it did get me typing for ten or fifteen minutes.
Hope you're being more productive than I am, and good Sunday, everybody.
1Say, "kvetch" is Yiddish, right? So should I italicize it as a foreign word? "Kvetch" instead of "kvetch."
I oughta write a style manual for myself one of these days.
2By the way, and this is so fucking strange: I knew William Gibson told The Onion a while back that he had "stopped" writing SF (those quotation marks will make sense in a moment). What I hadn't quite grokked was that he's still writing the exact same kinds of books he's been writing for twenty years. I mean, he had a great comment to exactly that effect, but it wasn't until I closed the cover on Spook Country that I really got it--it's classic Gibson, but now the world's caught up with the guy.
How long 'til his stuff essentially becomes historical fiction taking place in the present, I want to know.
Comments
Love,
Mom
And that practically rates as a high point. Huh.
Also, I'm now conjuring up the best episode of MacGyver ever from John's post, despite the fact that I can make an educated guess that his day really involved helping the kids with their homework and Sunday chores, and had nothing at all to do a ring of eastern European smugglers channeling KGB funds through a Swiss bank account.
(And just so she doesn't feel intentionally excluded somehow: love you too, Mom.)
So I guess I'm right there with you.
I had a pretty good Sunday out with friends and kids, and figured on not even trying to come up with a blog entry, daily publishing goal to be damned.
(Having tried all the big ones, I recommend okcupid for highest average quality first date; I dig their matching system).
-Shelley
The only writing I got done was measurements and a shopping list.