The Shape of Blog To Come

Having spent some time working out the specifics and mechanics of the forthcoming website update, pondering how I want to use the store and how all the pieces fit, I figured it was time to lay some track for the blog portion of the project, figure out how the train is going to run, and get it out of the station.

First decision: fresh blog every Twitchday (that's Tuesday, unless you've lived it in its Mister Hyde guise; you know who you are.) I was originally considering two-a-weeks, but that sounded like setting myself up for a high dive into a pile of blackberry canes, and between the site, the blog, the social media jots, the non-social writing, the non-writing living, and so on it sounded overly ambitious after I sat on it for a few days. As for dropping entries on Tuesday, it gives me the weekend to sew things up, it won't conflict with Free Fiction Friday should that return, and it helps restore the second day of the week to a more civil and hopefully enjoyable position in the week. #takingbacktwitchday

Second: what will the blog be about? Whatever interests me to write. The primary idea is to build back some writing discipline. A lot of blogs pick a theme and run in a straight line with it - they cook a cookbook, they visit Frank Lloyd Wright houses, they dig into the minutiae of a band, a film series, a toy line. Nothing wrong with that. And you may find me dabbling in such things; I have a shortbread recipe I'm itching to share. But if you know me, you know I'm a storyteller first, so my primary aim is to tell you a story, with some secondary explorations sharing information or passing along stuff I learn or cool things I encounter along the way. As an example, while my grandmother used the expression "crazy as a red-assed bee" she never prepared me for my first-ever sighting a couple days ago of a green-headed one - specifically, the green-headed sweat bee, here posing on the first of the sunflower blooms in the garden. There are some 42 species in the genus Agapostemon, which makes me wonder if Douglas Adams made them up. It seems like something he'd do. Ironically, the green-headed sweat bee isn't actually attracted to human sweat, despite the name. (File under: Drive on the parkway, park in the driveway.)

The first two months' worth of blog entries have been placed on a schedule (gasp! shock!) so I can keep track of where I am. First up will be a timely revisit of a piece that originally appeared on Facebook, embiggened for its appearance here. Forthcoming weeks will include an introduction to the new website store, a look back at Year One in this new old house, a snapshot of an historical piece of ephemera, a revisit of a pair of improbable found diaries (with a new coda), and a very special book announcement. 

While I contemplated moving some ongoing post series from Facebook to here - such as the home renovation updates of The Nail-Gun Follies or the negative scan-and-story posts of The 35mm Archive - for now they're going to stay a part of Zuckerberg's Monster in my friends-locked list. But I will leverage the Book o' the Face for prompts when a new blog goes live, primarily in the Doug Lane Writes public account, with my personal as a secondary. It never hurt to outline a large auditorium when seeking an audience.

And lastly, my desire is to keep the blog politics free, but...

To be real: I'm not going to convince anyone who feels differently than I do with any of my political opinions, at which point voicing them becomes an exercise in talking in a circle with other like-minded people, which just burns cycles and pisses us all off. But I say "my desire" because we live in perilous times, and I'm opposed to the destruction of our representative democracy by those who would put their false idol above the law and onto a throne, and I reserve the right to speak up about it. There's no plan or intent to make such posts a regular feature, because that's not what I want this space for, and I still have Facebook and other places for that sort of thing. Still: my house, my rules, and all policy is subject to change. If you don't like it, leaving is as free as walking in was.

That's the quick and dirty intro to at least the next few weeks. Maybe it lasts, maybe it fizzles, but either way, I hope to see you around the playground!

 

Coming 7/9: Of Birthdays and Baseballs