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So it begins.

I started a story tonight,which is pretty exciting, but, as simple and stupid as it sounds, the actual act of setting aside time to write and actually doing it (read: not working on web pages or grading papers or making tests, etc.) was really very cool. I cranked out 1,300 words of text, all rough, probably crap, but it felt sooooo good.

I'm not really sure where the story is going, but I had to use a line from a friend as the opening. His line was: Feeling guilty just means you have standards. I like that, considering I have a protagonist who is carrying a secret and feels pretty guilty about it. It's a first person story, too, which makes it seem confessional, but,in reality, is based on a whole bunch of people I have met and thought about. The first person is fun, too. I can play in another voice for a while.

The next session will, hopefully, be Thursday.

God, I'm exhausted...

Lives of Quiet Desperation

Thoreau said that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" in his homage to simplification, Walden. I fear that we are too much with Thoreau in this; at least I was. The demons and gremlins are easy to live with...heck, sometimes they're comforting. If I can blame something for my lack of effort, I don't have to change. Interesting.

When it comes to writing, I fear that my life of quiet desperation hinged a lot on fear: fear of rejection, fear of success, fear of really going out and getting something you want...I don't know. I made a decision (it's this type of confessional crap that turns me off to blogging, but I feel it tonight, so on we go), and that decision is to not let the demons get the better of me. I will put the work away, let the web sites sit for awhile, and I'll devote myself to what makes me me. I know that the soul searching can be scary. But that's what I do. Let it flow, baby.

Web 2.0, Blogging, and the Future of the Text

I've been in a funk for the better part of a year now trying to figure out what blogging means. I'm not stupid, I got the idea pretty quickly, but I was having trouble with the whole philosophical implications of automatic (push button, if you will-and now a word from our sponsor) publishing. Sites like Lulu and Blurb make actually publishing the old fashioned way pretty easy, but this whole instant gratification phenomenon has really tied me in knots.

At least metaphorically.

I mean I enjoy the fact that I can pour out the flotsam and jetsam of my mind at a moment's notice. I like that I can pontificate to the empty hall...it makes me feel better. But aside from the therapeutic effects of blogging, I guess I wonder about the democratization of publishing. If blogs are like opinions, or other, less savory anatomical areas, i.e we all have them, then do we end up devaluing the text? Are we all being watered down with this Web 2.0 business? And if we are, then where is the value in the text? I guess I'm canonical enough to still value a group of documents that somehow are the benchmarks of, say, Western Literature (although the same argument can be made for texts about gardening, or voyeurism, or cooking- I wonder if there is the canonical text on erotic yo-yo's? I have a friend who could possibly contribute!).

There is no answer, of course, just the ongoing dialogue. We all keep writing, like me, and maybe diluting the pool even more. Or will the definitive literary statement on the 21st century spring from the pages of Blogger, or Wordpress, or, perish the thought, Myspace? Anyway, the following video by Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University, takes a stab at what Web 2.0 really means. It's pretty thought-provoking.