On the name change and what things will look like going forward

The rename was a long time in coming, but I think it suits the blog better for where I’d like to take it now that I am no longer a college student (which reminds me I have to update my ‘About’ page). But in keeping with the Monty Python theme, the phrase is derived from the Spanish Inquisition skit.

I promise the room is cleaner now

I’m still going to do book reviews- I think it’ll be the only way to get me through the massive stacks of books I have. On a recent organization of my room, I counted up 164 physical books, not counting the ones I have on my Kindle; about 30, give or take a few, hadn’t been read at all or had been opened so long ago that I may as well not have opened them (and I have no bookshelves. Make of this what you will). I will, however, try and stretch a bit and get some nonfiction reviews in, which should be an interesting endeavor.

I’m also hoping to get more of my own works up on the blog once I get a bit more settled and have some finished that I like.

For categories and formatting, I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to merge “Unsolicited Opinions” with “Essays” but for now I’m going to keep them separate.

When I have some free time (ha), I’ll probably go through some of my older posts and weed out the pictures I used when I was dumber about these things and thought Googling an image meant it was automatically fair game to use. I did consider taking down some of my older posts, as the writing and humor attempts of some are just painfully bad, but if I was dumb enough to think it worth posting online a few years ago, I should bear with that decision now. Not to mention the internet is forever, and it probably wouldn’t be too hard to find an archived version if I ended up removing anything.

As evidenced by the long absences between updates, I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on. If you guys want to recommend any of yours that I’ve missed, feel free to do so!

Currently listening to: The Interstellar soundtrack by Hans Zimmer.
Just finished reading: “Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn. A rather nice take on what might happen after the end times, particularly for focusing on how people might live as opposed to the destruction of the world as we know it.

On the blending of words and actions

When I was in college and the piles of deadlines became too much to handle, I’d finish what I absolutely had to for the day, grab my keys and head out to start walking.

It always began as an aimless stroll, one day moving through the residential areas to the west of my campus one day, heading east to Lake Michigan on the next day. I’d cross busy streets, double back, go down a road I’d headed down in the opposite direction a few days before. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it.

One thing was always constant, though. Somewhere along the way, I’d stop by a place with books.

Motivational Deadline Setting

So here’s the thing. Full-time work takes time. Add a forty-minute commute- give or take ten minutes with possible train delays- and that takes even more time. When that work consists of writing and researching for articles all day, I don’t want to spend the little free time doing even more typing. And so I read or catch up on television or check Twitter without actually tweeting anything.

Now that I think about it, the fact that I sometimes struggle to come up with 140 interesting characters is a little sad.

Guys, I’m quitting book blogging to be a burglar for a bunch of dwarves

(I wish)

Why stories?

Sometimes I wish my blog was more useful than it was. I wish I had advice on how to get into the publishing industry, or make a bestselling story. Maybe my blog would be better if I offered more advice, sought out an audience, focused more on social networking, or tried to promote myself more.

But I keep focusing on stories, and I think I now have the words for why.

One Year of Blogging

I’ve spent some time trying to come up with something to say in this post other than “Been blogging for a year!” and failing rather miserably.

So I guess I could recap some numbers.

Some belated blogging awards, Goodreads, and Camp NaNoWriMo

I was nominated for a couple blogging awards in the span of the last few months, and because I’m a lazy and forgetful person, never actually got around to passing them on. Plus I’m on Goodreads and am doing Camp NaNoWriMo, so I wanted take care of it all in a housekeeping post of sorts.

5 dead authors who would have made great bloggers

One of the few things I dislike about living in the 21st century is that most of my favorite authors are dead. I can dig up their letters and autobiographies, but I sometimes want to know them more intimately. And there’s only a limited amount of material with which I can get to know these writers. Because they’re long past, they’ll always be a mystery. (Unless I get a TARDIS; then all bets are off.)

But there are five authors in particular I wish could have lived in this era and thus had more of a chance to get to know.