There is a dusting of snow on the ground now, which makes the light behave in a way it only does in winter. At certain times of day it seems the light comes from nowhere, that it just is some integral component of the air.
It is cold, but cold feels different to me lately. I may have crossed some invisible biological boundary. I might be time for me to admit the possibility that I am no longer (physiologically speaking) a desert rat.
Come January, I will start my 5th year in Iowa. I can't say I ever would have chosen this place off a map and decided to live here, but I'm used to it now. There is even something about the deep freeze of winter that I like. I suppose it reminds me of the summers in Arizona. If you venture forth unprepared, you really could die out there.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Status Update
It would seem lately all I'm doing on this blog is announcing the creation of other blogs, and also that I am currently more interested in writing fake blogs than real ones. So I'm sure you'll be not that surprised to hear vitzy.com has already undergone another transformation. Don't worry -- you can still find the gerbil over here.
But my latest project involves a more cohesive fake blogging effort. My plan is to write a novel-length story via the blogs of the characters. The working title is Another Year or Two and it is set in the fictional town of Turnpost, which was also the setting of a novel I finished earlier this year, called East of Turnpost. Some of the characters overlap, but it is by no means necessary to have read my earlier novel to follow the story the blog will tell (which is good, because East of Turnpost is neither published, nor ready to be published).
So, this is an experiment! It's my serial-novel-meets-modern-media-frankensteinian-creation. It's still in Beta as far as both the design and my fine-tuning of the CMS that I chose to build it on, so bear with me as I iron out the kinks. Eventually I hope to expose it to a wider audience, but now for we're in sneak preview mode.
Check it out and if you're so inclined, read. :)
But my latest project involves a more cohesive fake blogging effort. My plan is to write a novel-length story via the blogs of the characters. The working title is Another Year or Two and it is set in the fictional town of Turnpost, which was also the setting of a novel I finished earlier this year, called East of Turnpost. Some of the characters overlap, but it is by no means necessary to have read my earlier novel to follow the story the blog will tell (which is good, because East of Turnpost is neither published, nor ready to be published).
So, this is an experiment! It's my serial-novel-meets-modern-media-frankensteinian-creation. It's still in Beta as far as both the design and my fine-tuning of the CMS that I chose to build it on, so bear with me as I iron out the kinks. Eventually I hope to expose it to a wider audience, but now for we're in sneak preview mode.
Check it out and if you're so inclined, read. :)
Friday, September 23, 2011
Is THIS Blog Dead?
Ahem. Well. That's another question entirely. I have at least redesigned it. That's something isn't it?
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Is the Blog Dead?
Not long ago I happened across an article that declared the blog is dead. The fad has passed. No one blogs anymore. Facebook has carried the day, and we should delete our blogger accounts and move on.
Undeniably, there is some evidence for this conclusion. Few of my friends still blog. Even this blog has been sitting pretty idle lately. Reading this headline, then, made me experience a strange moment of discomfort. It was akin to that day in the 90's when I realized no one else was wearing Guess jeans but I still loved mine.
I have no less than five blogs. This one, a business blog, a blog devoted entirely to my horse, a blog written in the voice of a fictional gerbil, and a blog about my as-yet-non-existent career as an author. Obviously I haven't gotten the "blogging is dead" memo.
But when I started thinking about it a bit more I realized that while the day of co-eds sitting at computers late at night pouring their hearts into their xanga accounts has indeed passed (a status update or a tweet is a far more effective way to express angst to a huge slew of possibly sympathetic listeners) this very fact has actually allowed the blog to prosper. Blogs have reverted to the domain of people who actually want to write, usually about a particular subject, with some degree of expertise.
Of my five blogs, the one that gets by far the most attention is my horse blog. This came as a surprise for me, because I really started it for personal reasons. I wanted to keep track of what happened with my horses and I wanted a couple key people who are interested to be able to follow my progress as well. Since starting it, however, I've realized there is a massive internet community of horse-owners who are doing the same thing. Reading horse-blogs has become one of my favorite ways to procrastinate. But I'll be the first to admit that even my own horse blog is massively boring to anyone who's not totally into horses.
Other areas where the blogosphere is booming are equally specialized. Foodie blogs, fitness blogs, and overall health/mental wellness blogs are hugely popular, some of these generating and maintaining massive readerships. There is also still ample demand for blogs attached to businesses. People love an inside look into the secret lives of professionals.
So if all this is true, how can we support the thesis that the blog is dead? I say we can't. It's an untenable argument, and I, for one, am glad of it. I must admit to personally despising Facebook. I only maintain a presence there because I feel obliged to do so. My blogs, however, are labors of love. The longer I keep posting, the more interesting it is to look back and see my own evolution as a professional, an equestrian, a writer, a gerbil, and a person.
Undeniably, there is some evidence for this conclusion. Few of my friends still blog. Even this blog has been sitting pretty idle lately. Reading this headline, then, made me experience a strange moment of discomfort. It was akin to that day in the 90's when I realized no one else was wearing Guess jeans but I still loved mine.
I have no less than five blogs. This one, a business blog, a blog devoted entirely to my horse, a blog written in the voice of a fictional gerbil, and a blog about my as-yet-non-existent career as an author. Obviously I haven't gotten the "blogging is dead" memo.
But when I started thinking about it a bit more I realized that while the day of co-eds sitting at computers late at night pouring their hearts into their xanga accounts has indeed passed (a status update or a tweet is a far more effective way to express angst to a huge slew of possibly sympathetic listeners) this very fact has actually allowed the blog to prosper. Blogs have reverted to the domain of people who actually want to write, usually about a particular subject, with some degree of expertise.
Of my five blogs, the one that gets by far the most attention is my horse blog. This came as a surprise for me, because I really started it for personal reasons. I wanted to keep track of what happened with my horses and I wanted a couple key people who are interested to be able to follow my progress as well. Since starting it, however, I've realized there is a massive internet community of horse-owners who are doing the same thing. Reading horse-blogs has become one of my favorite ways to procrastinate. But I'll be the first to admit that even my own horse blog is massively boring to anyone who's not totally into horses.
Other areas where the blogosphere is booming are equally specialized. Foodie blogs, fitness blogs, and overall health/mental wellness blogs are hugely popular, some of these generating and maintaining massive readerships. There is also still ample demand for blogs attached to businesses. People love an inside look into the secret lives of professionals.
So if all this is true, how can we support the thesis that the blog is dead? I say we can't. It's an untenable argument, and I, for one, am glad of it. I must admit to personally despising Facebook. I only maintain a presence there because I feel obliged to do so. My blogs, however, are labors of love. The longer I keep posting, the more interesting it is to look back and see my own evolution as a professional, an equestrian, a writer, a gerbil, and a person.
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