Been wondering what to do about my blog for some time.
Have to say, it's a kind of embarrassing habit, something that I started tentatively and with no particular aim in mind. Some people, I've noticed, are able to keep a kind of professional decorum to their outpourings, but that doesn't seem to be me, for some reason. From a practical point of view, I keep on going because occasionally I have a writing announcement to make, and I don't have an official website and I hate computers and don't have any kind of webmastery friends, so have never managed to get together anything where I can just leave it be and post an occasional update in a website rather than a blog sort of way. So I'm afraid I've just slouched along with this thing.
I'd delete it, but I am honestly sentimental about some of the comments I have received. (I deleted my LiveJournal blog a little while back, and was considering committing cybercide, but didn't, because of the comments on this blog, and because I want to continue to use my MySpace page as a place to mirror the songs put up on the Kodagain MySpace page.)
I kind of feel like I couldn't hope for a better character assassin for myself than myself. I wish someone could do all this for me. Almost anyone would represent me better than I do, I'm sure.
Anyway, if I do think of a solution to my blog quandary, it might mean that I don't post here anymore.
I know, I know – I shouldn't make promises I can't keep. So, it's not a promise. Just a hope.
I would hate to lose one of the only writers’ blogs that I actually read. Considering the erudition and relative even-handedness of what I have seen on here I almost consider many of the lengthier entries to be essays on various subjects, the kind that would usually be bound together after the artist’s death and issued as a bedside reader or some-such. Obviously many of the short entries are ephemera that even the most conceited person wouldn’t want to bother preserving, but much of it has merit. Maybe it is all just opinion?Some people work for posterity and others only for the present so I suppose that your position on that continuum dictates a lot of what you will take into consideration. Also obviously the readers shouldn’t really be taken into account, otherwise you will feel as if you are beholden to ‘us’. It is quite possible that I am just ignorant, but I am not really seeing any character (self-)assassination. Perhaps you are thinking that because you have the role of ‘author’ as seen by the larger world that that is lending too much emphasis to what you view as your own tiny voice in a sea of others. Maybe you are worried about becoming a ‘political’ entity, so to speak, by the continued presence of a site like this when all that you really want to do is create your work.Anyway if you did decide to leave, I would see two possibilities right off the bat: The first would be to simply maintain a separate and private personal site to keep in touch with friends etc. The second would be to just save the bits that you wanted to remember from this site to a disk and close up shop. I know that people like me would be a little dejected because of not getting the latest news from Quentinville and not being able to correspond with an actual living writer whom we enjoy reading, but that’s life. And life sucks… :clown:
Quentin – and finally try watching this – http://vimeo.com/9553205It came via another blogger here – quite appropriate I think?Rob
Anonymous writes:it will be a sad day when this place closes up shop. it would be like the Aetherius Society abondoning their spiritual energy batteries, ceasing radiation and leaving the world to fend for itself!
Quentin – I have to say that your thoughts do not come as a shock. Like the previous comment by John Renard I constantly enjoy the musings of your mind. I know I would drift off too if you left. That isn’t important in only to say that I know of nobody else here as interesting as you.If you want an almost free and simple way to promote yourself then set up a page(s) through WordPress. You will need to register your domain name but again that is simple and quite inexpensive. Try 123-reg. If you want to promote yourself in short form then consider Facebook – 400 million users – or Twitter – 50 million tweets per day – again they are free. I have a famous good friend who is also an author and journalist. If you go to Facebook then leave a note here or mail me through Opera so that you can consider adding me as a “Friend” to get up and running. My friend I mentioned promotes his books and good humour on his page. However he recently said that as he is going to write a new book he will scale down his activity – common sense really. Facebook does appear to assist in self-promotion in his case at least. I came to Opera as a user of the browser. I discovered that Opera blog world is a clean and civil space. The Nutters in cyberspace appear to be weeded out quite quickly. If you do leave and leave suddenly may I wish you good luck for your future. Rob.
Anonymous writes:No! Please don’t leave! I have only just recently discovered your work, and your blog is fascinating. I will take me a while to get through everything here. Please do not tear this site down, and please keep posting here. Your mind is dazzling.
I’ve just realised I wrote “I was intending to be melodramatic”. I actually meant to write “wasn’t”, but I’ll let that stand as it is.
Hello.I was intending to be melodramatic.The fact is, I’ve had a plan B dormant for some time. I feel like this blog embodies some of the worst aspects of teh Internet. Obviously, it should be taken as comedy, but, comedy is no good if you have to tell people to laugh.Anyway, I don’t know if the Plan B will ever come online (if it doesn’t it will be due to my lack of patience with computery things). If it does come online, it definitely won’t be worth waiting for.It will be my deliberate attempt to kickstart a change of tone and to be ‘superficial’, etc., which will be ‘intended’ as ‘ironic’ because it will actually be ‘less’ superficial than this blog, etc, etc.But it probably won’t happen anyway.More later…
I would hate to lose one of the only writers’ blogs that I actually read. Considering the erudition and relative even-handedness of what I have seen on here I almost consider many of the lengthier entries to be essays on various subjects, the kind that would usually be bound together after the artist’s death and issued as a bedside reader or some-such. Obviously many of the short entries are ephemera that even the most conceited person wouldn’t want to bother preserving, but much of it has merit. Maybe it is all just opinion?Thanks. I appreciate this. Perhaps you are thinking that because you have the role of ‘author’ as seen by the larger world that that is lending too much emphasis to what you view as your own tiny voice in a sea of others. Maybe you are worried about becoming a ‘political’ entity, so to speak, by the continued presence of a site like this when all that you really want to do is create your work.Well, it’s not really just one thing, but I am wary of becoming ‘political’, largely because I don’t actually think I know what I’m talking about. If I have anything to offer, I don’t suppose it would be either knowledge of any kind or political insight. Then again, it would be spineless of me not to try and think about things just because I’m not qualified. In other words – it’s embarrassing for me to write down something that actually goes without saying, but – this blog is worthless in terms of ‘social comment’, it’s not specialist, either, the way some blogs have a particular theme, and people can give you the advantage of their specialised subject, or whatever. It’s not writing that I’ve really taken any time over, except in one or two cases, so I do view it all pretty much as ephemera, but… what for? I tend to write things on this blog in a kind of kneejerk way. It’s the kneejerk that has the momentum to make a blog post, but not for me to sit down with a pen and notebook and really make something decent of it. And I don’t really like the idea that I’m making public all my most knee-jerk inner moments. If I would not make a good social commentator or educationalist, I think I’d make a fairly good diarist, and this blog is close to that in a way, except that I don’t really write about what’s happening in my life, because that certainly isn’t something I want to publish until after I’m dead, and I’m not even writing about the things that are most interesting to me, because I tend to want to put them in actual stories and so on.So… There are lots of reasons I get tired of this blog, but it seems to have gained a kind of lazy momentum of its own, and I’m not quite sure how to stop it.I have to say that your thoughts do not come as a shock. Like the previous comment by John Renard I constantly enjoy the musings of your mind. I know I would drift off too if you left. That isn’t important in only to say that I know of nobody else here as interesting as you.
If you want an almost free and simple way to promote yourself then set up a page(s) through WordPress. You will need to register your domain name but again that is simple and quite inexpensive. Try 123-reg.Thanks. I might look into WordPress, actually. I say “might” because I do find myself having very little patience with computer things. I am actually on Facebook, but not under my own name. I attempted to delete my Facebook account when I deleted my LiveJournal account, but I was only allowed to ‘deactivate’ the account, which meant that the account still existed dormantly, probably indefinitely. Then I was talked into reactivating my account.I have also considered Twitter. It might actually suit me to take things to that degree of ephemerality, but I suppose I don’t feel ready to make the commitment to something that I might feel like deleting again later.it will be a sad day when this place closes up shop. it would be like the Aetherius Society abondoning their spiritual energy batteries, ceasing radiation and leaving the world to fend for itself!The Aetherius Society. I like that. On a related note, when I made a pact with the dead soul of U.G. Krishnamurti earlier today, agreeing that I would house his spider-spirit in my body in exchange for his knowledge and magical powers, I decided that one of the things for which I would use those magical powers was to send out waves of telepathic love energy to heal Jeanette Winterson of her loneliness and sorrow:http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/22/jeanette-winterson-thought-of-suicideI don’t know if it worked. I’ll have to get in touch with her and find out. If it has then I will consider the pact to be well made.No! Please don’t leave! I have only just recently discovered your work, and your blog is fascinating. I will take me a while to get through everything here. Please do not tear this site down, and please keep posting here. Your mind is dazzling.I have to kind of mumble awkward words of gratitude for these comments, but I wasn’t fishing. As I said, it’s not a promise that I’ll stop writing here. I suppose I just feel dissatisfied with the way the blog is, and embarrassed about what is now a lengthy, detailed public record. I suppose the damage is done and I just have to live with it.