The Lonliness of the Long Distance Blogger

I began this blog for two reasons. Okay, three.  First of all, I wanted to familiarize myself with online self-promotion. If you take away the creative part of writing for audience, it's all about promotion. People can't read you if they aren't aware you exist. So I began this to learn the ropes in a low-expectation way, figuring that at some magical point in the future, I'd put together an professional author's website, using what I had gleaned from my "fun" blog.

Secondly, when I'm mad, I like to write. I figure my putting pen to paper is the thing that keeps me from doing something untoward and newsworthy. ("Oh, yes, we all knew one day she would snap. It was just a matter of time.") Even before I started blogging, I wrote long, vituperative missives to people who really pissed me off. I usually did not send them, but just the act of letting out the venom was enough to stop bad thoughts from pinging around inside my little head. I still have some of them. There was one to the Evil Priest who attempted to sabotage the S/O and I's relationship. (And, yes, he has forever after been referred to in our household as "The Evil Priest.") I think it ended with, "And my one overarching goal in life is to live long enough to dance on your grave, you horrid, bitter little gnome" or something like that.  Hence, every few weeks, I'm not blogging so much as yelling at the world about the latest stupid crap it's pulled. It's my safety valve.

And then to the third reason is that desire to be read. If you ask any writer if they want to be read and they tell you no, they are BIG FAT LIARS. Making a living off writing is nice, but you'd be surprised at the very small number of people who do it. Being read is what real writers want. So, thanks, you 125 or so people who read what is basically my online diary/entertainment review/rant. (Hi, Mom, David, Susan, Richard, you lovely people from Denmark who show up in my stats every week.) It's nice to know you're out there and that occasionally I may amuse you to some degree.

That being said, with my new wacky adventure, I'm going to be focusing somewhat more on writing and publishing stuff, and the posts here are going to reflect that. I need to work some things out mentally, and writing stuff that I know has to make sense to other people tends to do that. Great news for those of you who care about writing and publishing and books, not so great for those who drop by for pictures of Pete, essays on why I hate to drive someone else's car, or snarky reviews of stupid TV shows. A new website is coming, completely separate from this one, but I'm still rather fond of my little garret here, so the nonsense will continue, it's just more likely to be interspersed with something, I don't know, useful.

Cheers!