Week in Review - Feelin' Bloggy

It's only a week until Chinese New Year, which is when I said I would start real blogging again.

I've said it before: the deadlines of blogging work really super well for me.  They work better to get me going than anything else I've ever done.  An artificial deadline (1000 words today, or this scene done today) doesn't work, because it isn't a real deadline.  And that's why I decided to continue to do serials on this blog twice a week.  It ties my fiction to those real deadlines.

Furthermore, blogging is ground zero of the new wave of Diligent Amateurism I was talking about on Wednesday.  

So I'm thinking maybe it was wrong to try to put limits on my blogging. I should stop trying to escape the time-sink that is my blog, and instead leap into it with both feet. It's time to stop worrying and love the blog.

New Blogging Direction, Similar to the Old Blogging Direction

I've wanted to turn this blog into a magazine, with nearly daily posting of a variety of things.  Something you could read daily, or browse through once a week. I started a schedule for this, but got sunk by the day job.

For the subject: Well, I'm not making any radical changes, but I will continue easing away from things which are purely of interest to indie writers.  The focus is on story, on the work itself, not so much on the business or the writer.

I'm going to be talking more about covers and illustration and typogrpahy -- what it means, how to look at it and see the design elements.  I'll also be writing about old-time illustration; maybe showing you my discoveries from Project Gutenberg.  (I browse through all the new uploads every few days, looking for interesting illos and design.)

I will return to Friday Favorites, and though I'll be reviewing books as well as movies, I will probably focus more formally on old books and movies.  But especially movies.

I'll also do more Story Notes about things I'm writing, but also more analysis of that kind with things I'm reading or watching. 

And, of course, the serials and the cartoons will continue.  I might even go so far as to spin off a separate blog for the Mary Alwyn series before next fall, when it will pick up again.  (I'm thinking seriously about a once-a-week, longer episode serial blog devoted to just htat series, and keeping the slightly sillier and lighter stuff for this blog.)  But that would be a lot of work, so I have to see what happens between now and October.

This coming week:

On the serial, we'll see what's happened to Jackie in Episode 31 "Misery and Angels" and also see what happens when Clement gets out of the closet, from the point of view of Sisi, the servant girl, who is the "Quietest Person."  (After that we'll have only one more week for Test of Freedom -- when we'll get the wrap up from Lady Ashton and Sherman, and then a teaser into the next story -- as we meet Sabatine's new governor.)

Because I'm not starting up formal blogging again until the tenth, I'm shifting Miss Leech to the second Tuesday of every month now.

The Day The Music Died

This is the anniversary of the day Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens died in a plane crash -- known as "The Day The Music Died."  Here's a little Buddy Holly for you -- my favorite, because it's about patient optimism:  Every day, it's a gettin' closer, going faster than a roller coaster.... (It won't embed, so you'll have to click through to YouTube to listen.)

See you in the funny papers.