You have a real blog! You don't need a real one and Movable Type and all the pro stuff if the content is the important part.
A LiveJournal *is* a REAL blog! This is a community where you can set up a friends list (more properly called a reading list) and just click on that "friends" page link to read 'em all. Can't do that with blogspot. I have to make a special effort to remember to go read the blogspot writers I like. It's SO much better here, and easier to use. Don't ever let 'em tell you this isn't a REAL weblog!
I'm glad to hear that the kitty with pinkeye is being treated. I would still keep an eye (any color will do) on the other kitty, though, because my cat Mischief had a problem with the ligaments in his hip joints, and we had to keep him from jumping on the furniture for a couple of weeks so they could get better (and then the vet looked again and said things were OK, but it could've been a problem.) Mischief had to stay in our sunroom for a couple of weeks, and he thought he was being punished and sentenced to prison. I had to take all the furniture out, and he must have spent the whole time wondering, "Why me? What'd I do?" Poor baby! But anyway, it sounds a bit alarming, so I'd definitely watch for any other symptoms. You probably already ARE, but just thought I would nag. I'm really good at nagging. Are there job descriptions that include nagging? (Other than "mom" and "spouse.")
I agree with you that many of the books I pick up now seem to be lacking. I think this is colored slightly by my various experiences trying to sell my own manuscripts, but that's not all of it; so many books just don't measure up to what I think they could be. Don't know if there's anything to be done about it other than wait. If we don't become a post-literate society, maybe there'll be a sea change. Maybe proofreading will come back in fashion! I hope so! *grin* One of the problems is that critique groups and how-to books and so forth are teaching a One True Way to write. It's making everything too much the same. You have to be politically correct (or so I am told by one online instructor), you can't do THIS and you can't do THAT, and you have to do A, B, and C within chapter one. Within such restrictive guidelines, people turn out books that are (or edit their books to become) vanilla and isn't-this-one-I've-read? The exciting new voices are damped down after the first round of critiques and rewrites. Anything that could be interesting goes away in those new drafts. It's alarming, but when I chime in to say that perhaps the problems could be fixed without losing the freshness and the voice, I am told that The Rules Rule. No matter that the rules did not come from any editor! No matter that someone just made them up! The Rules are promulgated across many critique groups and workshops. They can be useful, but other times they are taken in the wrong spirit. I miss "Book" books, the ones that weren't part of a brand or part of a genre, but just books. (That ship has sailed. Or it crashed on the rocks.)
I know you're trying to support and buy the good "Book" books. Keep it up.
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Date: 2006-04-05 08:29 pm (UTC)A LiveJournal *is* a REAL blog! This is a community where you can set up a friends list (more properly called a reading list) and just click on that "friends" page link to read 'em all. Can't do that with blogspot. I have to make a special effort to remember to go read the blogspot writers I like. It's SO much better here, and easier to use. Don't ever let 'em tell you this isn't a REAL weblog!
I'm glad to hear that the kitty with pinkeye is being treated. I would still keep an eye (any color will do) on the other kitty, though, because my cat Mischief had a problem with the ligaments in his hip joints, and we had to keep him from jumping on the furniture for a couple of weeks so they could get better (and then the vet looked again and said things were OK, but it could've been a problem.) Mischief had to stay in our sunroom for a couple of weeks, and he thought he was being punished and sentenced to prison. I had to take all the furniture out, and he must have spent the whole time wondering, "Why me? What'd I do?" Poor baby! But anyway, it sounds a bit alarming, so I'd definitely watch for any other symptoms. You probably already ARE, but just thought I would nag. I'm really good at nagging. Are there job descriptions that include nagging? (Other than "mom" and "spouse.")
I agree with you that many of the books I pick up now seem to be lacking. I think this is colored slightly by my various experiences trying to sell my own manuscripts, but that's not all of it; so many books just don't measure up to what I think they could be. Don't know if there's anything to be done about it other than wait. If we don't become a post-literate society, maybe there'll be a sea change. Maybe proofreading will come back in fashion! I hope so! *grin* One of the problems is that critique groups and how-to books and so forth are teaching a One True Way to write. It's making everything too much the same. You have to be politically correct (or so I am told by one online instructor), you can't do THIS and you can't do THAT, and you have to do A, B, and C within chapter one. Within such restrictive guidelines, people turn out books that are (or edit their books to become) vanilla and isn't-this-one-I've-read? The exciting new voices are damped down after the first round of critiques and rewrites. Anything that could be interesting goes away in those new drafts. It's alarming, but when I chime in to say that perhaps the problems could be fixed without losing the freshness and the voice, I am told that The Rules Rule. No matter that the rules did not come from any editor! No matter that someone just made them up! The Rules are promulgated across many critique groups and workshops. They can be useful, but other times they are taken in the wrong spirit. I miss "Book" books, the ones that weren't part of a brand or part of a genre, but just books. (That ship has sailed. Or it crashed on the rocks.)
I know you're trying to support and buy the good "Book" books. Keep it up.