Bob Freeman is Nuts

So I am going through my normal procrastination ritual of reading some of the hundred or so blogs I’m subscribed to, when I run across Bob Freeman’s blog entry on how he blogs. It’s a question folks like Bob and I get from time to time that I know quite a few folks wrestle with: how do you blog?

I blog just like Bob.

Except completely different.

God bless the writers who can just sit down to a blank page, completely unintimidated, with just an idea, and just start writing, because I couldn't do that. I need a map, some sort of guide even if it’s just a rough sketch to keep me somewhat on point (or at least make sure I reach a point). It’s not always the case, but I bet you can tell when I don’t at least sketch out my thoughts first, else they pretty much stay the same half thought out idea they began with (this blog began with “Bob is nuts”).

Does blogging take away from my real writing time? No, blogging is PART of my real writing time. I understand what the asker is aiming at. The time I spend blogging is time that I could be working on a novel or a short story or an article, and that’s quite true. But it is still writing (and one day I’m going to calculate just how many words a year I generate in blogging alone and compare that with my “actual” writing output).

I blog on a variety of topics, mostly just whatever I’m thinking about at the time and I publish them in a variety of venues (Indy.Com, Blogging in Black, Hollywood Jesus) for greater exposure and because if I can make money by my writing I most certainly will (heck, I’ve even sold ad space on some of my older blog entries). But I can’t write the way Bob does.

My blog mentors, whether they realized it or not, were/are Nick Mamatas, Brian Keene, and Lauren David (she hates it when I point out that I began blogging as a weird sort of competition with her), thus the weird mix of topics. My blog is my professional face, often the first thing prospective editors and agents look at when they visit my site. I also blog with a distant eye on one day bundling up various blog posts and packaging them as non-fiction book proposals.

But I like I tell folks, there’s no hard and fast rule to this. Half the time I envy those folks who can sit down and write because (and this is my issue) I see them as more authentically artistic. The other half of the time, I wonder if they’re the same folks who talk about their works in progress in the blogs saying things like “I had to cut out 20K of words that didn’t work”. And then I thank God for my map (he says knowing that he's about to sit down to re-work his first novel to cut 40K out of it because, like a typical guy, he didn't stop to ask directions when he got lost).


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I Don’t Twitter

Seriously, I hate Twitter. I hate the idea of Twitter. In fact, as I hop on my hypocrisy broom since I have a column and a blog, in this age of blogs and Twitter and Facefook and MySpace, it may be time for many folks to shut up.

There’s a reason we aren’t telepaths: I don’t have to hear your every thought, especially when you think it. Too many of us as is don’t take the time to sit with our thoughts, to mull things over, before we open our pie holes. No, we feel something in the moment and then blog it, let your mouth get away from us (or rather, our fingers get ahead of us as we come down with a case of keyboard courage).

Maybe I’m just disappointed by the level of conversation. More likely, I see myself as a professional writer and with the Internet being largely a medium of words (and porn), I tend to cling to the pipe dream that as written communicators, we should be able to present our ideas and opinions in clear and precise ways. Of course, the other edge of that writer’s sword that I’m swinging is that writers have ego enough to believe that what they write deserves to be read. Unfortunately, Twittering everything that pops into your head gives plenty of room for people to see the shallowness and vacuity of those thoughts.

It’s easy to shoot yourself in the foot on the Internet. As we vomit our gossipy messages all over the Internet, heedless of the mess we make, we forget two things: one, careless words can’t be unsaid, even more so on the Internet; and two, the Internet is forever and we don’t realize that nothing is truly deleted.

Maybe I’m just a curmudgeon who can’t idly flit away a day updating folks on his mood. Keep in mind that I don’t text message. I don’t believe the language of Shakespeare should be reduced to OMG C U L8TR, but that’s a rant for another day.


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My 2007 Blog Year in Review

Since it’s that time of year where we reflect on where we’ve been. (Plus, I’m gearing up for a jaunt out to Seattle for the Hollywood Jesus Annual Gathering where I’ll be one of the speakers. They want me to do a presentation about my blog On Magical Negroes.) So I thought I’d end the year with a look back at some of my favorite blog posts ... written by me. You know, in case you missed any of them (in no particular order despite the fact that my favorites top the list):

Horror Premises: White People are You Kidding Me? – yeah, I knew once I hit post that this was going to be my favorite blog of the year. If only from the amount of giggling Chesya and I did while “researching” it.

A Writer's Dark Night of the Soul – one of my blogs for "Blogging in Black." My angst-ridden plea to when the muse goes silent and/or it goes too long between validations (i.e. that golden ticket known as the acceptance letter). Though my interview with Alethea Kontis was another fave.

Prayer of Emergence – because sometimes I need to be reminded of a few things.

On lighter notes, there’s nothing like medical procedures and my family being, well, us. So we have The Catheter Incident, Restaurant Debacles, and Broaddus Family Tradition Continues.

Take Your Ass Home – nuff said. None of us are so important we can’t go home.

Betrayed by Faith? Growing Through Disillusionment. You’d almost think there was a theme to some of my musings this year. Actually, both were "blog homework assignments" (it's a thing that happens on my message board: different folks get tagged with topics to blog about).

Black Self-Image

Who are you having these conversations with? Part I and Part II.

American Idol – in my rationalization for watching the show, I was reminded of how this is analogous to the business of writing, both as a writer and as an editor.

Speaking of other threads of thought through the year, there was the “Community Series”: Participatory Community. Earn the Right to Speak. Earn the Right to Complain. Community Crutch.

A few Friday Night Date Place blogs can be mentioned. The Right to be Picky. For the Love of Money. A Thief Always Gets Caught. By the way, you forfeit the right to feeling “blogged at” if you’re calling me up and end up using the phrase “you ought to blog about this” in the conversation.

Of the columns I write for Intake/Indy.com, Pipe Down IPS gets an honorable mention only because it generated so much mail for me. Sheesh, considering that I write about race and religion fairly often, I can’t believe cheering at a graduation proves to be the most divisive issue I’ve written.

And a few of my Hollywood Jesus reviews were personal favorites: 300, Pan's Labyrinth, Doctor Who/Torchwood, Transformers, The Riches, and Sunshine.


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If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.

My Blog Birthday

Today is my third year birthday for this blog. It's finally coming out of the terrible two's: it is learning to talk back, throw tantrums, and still often drool on itself.

Though a lot of my friends had blogs/Live Journals at the time and some spoke of the marketing advantages such things had to aspiring writers, my first comment to the blogosphere involved nothing related to writing, spirituality, race, or pop culture. No, it was an encounter with a crazy @$$ squirrel.

That, ghetto weddings, and white trash weddings are my legacy to teh interwebz.

Now, instead of checking to see how much my blog is worth, let's check its readability:

P.S. - My friend, Richard Dansky has a new story up over on Pseudopod. Go forth and check it out.


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If you want to make sure that I see your comment or just want to stop by and say hi, feel free to do so on my message board. I apologize in advance for some of my regulars.