Ah, meta-blogging– how long I’ve avoided it! However, it’s time for a little navel-gazing, with a small hint of resentment (but not for obvious reasons).
Those who look at comments will have seen the one on yesterday’s progress report. For those who don’t, the main part of it:
Pssst,… can I talk to you for a second? Uh… please, please, please forgive me but, … uh… I think you’re grossly over estimating your readership’s interest in “what”, “how much” and “how long”, especially since we never get to see the results of this effort [emphasis added for reasons to follow]. I know, I know we got to see one, but still… these progress reports read too much like, and are about as interesting as the log my gastroenterologist had me keep for a while many years ago. Please, please, I,… WE beg you, go back to your missives and musings.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit to wondering if this wasn’t the case. However, there have been a quantity of “like” button pokings and even some new “follow” activity that plainly isn’t just robots trying to sell me stuff.
When I started with the progress report entries back at the start of the year, I had in mind two silly things. Thing one– if I stop making a noise on a daily basis, people (read, my father as perceived by me at age 13) will think I’m not actually working and become disappointed. Thing two– how will everyone know what pen I’m using on a given day? The celestial spheres will catch in their tracks without that intelligence reaching the world!
It has been a LONG time since I referred to the primary reason this enterprise came into being. While I’m happy to point people at the main site and in that way drum up some business for one of the things I’d rather be doing for money than The Regular Job, that’s not why I started yelling at the internet during my lunch breaks. I did it so I wouldn’t spend far too much time pondering the various auction sites of the world and getting into trouble when the temptation of a fixable and almost-affordable pen becomes too much to resist. This avoidance is still an important part of daily routine, indeed all the more so as the federal and provincial governments keep stamping on the middle class with both feet, but the turn to fiction (which is also high in the list for rather doing than The Regular Job) is quite handily turning me away from the sirens of internet commerce.
We will not, out of politeness, mention that even in the absence of the fiction distraction, this thing would have dried up about the same time for want of non-fictional material to chew over. That first five years of working here really emptied my shot locker. The infrequent non-progress reports are about all I had in me.
So the only reason I’d keep at what, as I have already admitted, is something I wonder at anyone reading is because some people are clearly interested; this gets me back silly thing one, above. I’d probably give up on the whole progress update concept entirely if I didn’t know my own powers of slacking off if entirely unobserved, so what I think I may do is this– some sort of week’s workings report, possibly on Thursday to avoid distracting from the fun of the Friday Fumbled (from someone else’s pocket) Film, and otherwise silence unless I’ve got something interesting to offer. Interesting within my previously established idiom, that is– let’s not get over-excited. I forget that with that “follow” button poked, people who are actually interested in what I’m at, whether it’s carving a story out of my brain, contemplating odd choices of style in mens’ wear, or being beaten into an unrecognizable heap by a pen unwilling to be fixed, will have the new developments thrust upon them. Daily howling is not strictly required.
Which leaves me with a couple of loose ends to tie up, or possibly down. Let me first address the emphasis added to the quote, which is another thing I’ll admit to some guilt about. On that, while I’m not going to instantly open the vaults, since some folks have turned the phrase “First Worldwide Rights” into a terrible lurking entity in my world– “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh First Worldwide Rights R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!“– but as Hallowe’en is coming up I am planning on putting something out where it can be (potentially) enjoyed by one and all. I may also post that contest entry from the summer here too, since First Worldwide Rights the Great and Terrible has caused the forum all the entries are on to hide them from non-members and web-crawlers.
Finally: resentment. Yep, there’s resentment infused into this entry. Not, as I hope I’ve made clear with all the preceding, regarding the content of the message. Rather, I find myself simmering because I’ve spent time blogging about blogging when a perfectly nice first draft story lies hardly begun. This suggests some degree of addiction.
Today’s pen: Sheaffer TM Valiant (fully recovered from previous surgery)
Today’s ink: Herbin’s Lie de Thé
What's up at Ravens March. 