Pot and Kettle

 "A blog is a sort of public diary where someone wrote down random thoughts, then other people for some odd reason enjoy reading them.  Who the hell reads this nonsense?"  So asked the author of a novel I just read.

Okay.  He is a published writer, a much published author;  you know the type:  five-foot shelf of books with his name on the spines, NYT best-seller list again and again.  Certainly entitles him to denigrate my scribbling.  Well, not exactly.  He has a right to express his opinion whether or not it is denigrating, whether or not he is an accomplished writer.

And thus it is that I ask, "Who the hell reads his drivel?" Obviously I do, or have done, anyway. So, I am going to spill what I think.  Some of these much-published authors very likely once wrote a book that received glowing critical acclaim, was touted to the skies by the press and the literati.  The book then sold well enough to hit the best-seller list.  His next effort may well have been trash, he having burned himself out in one blaze of glory.  But the publisher needs the money.  So they contract a host of ghost writers to churn out stuff on which they can stick his name and ballyhoo endlessly.  Money!  For the use of his name the "author" gets to sit on the beach in Paradise drinking daquiris whilst the spondoolicks roll in.

At least that is what I think. 

(Based on zero evidence, as you might suspect,  Isn't that the way the world works?)

Writer's Picks 2016 Part Two

July a little bird told me.

                                 August again, the little dickens

                                                                   September  BBBH cuts a rug

                                                                   October  a church custodian gives grace

                                November PhD to the nth degree

 December ruminations on creativity

Bonus also from December  a Christmas story

 And there you have it.  Thirteen picks for 2016.
 

Blogging: Thoughts on a Snowy Day

Have you ever clicked on the "Next blog" tab at the top of the blogger page display?  Just one trip through a few of these gates will raise some interesting questions.  Or it did for me, at any rate.

 1. Why does this blog lie dormant?

 I clicked through five consecutive blogs which lay unattended for some length of time ranging from eleven months to five years.  Someone wanted to blog, conceived and initiated a blog, then quit without so much as a by-your-leave.  In some cases the blogger may be deceased, which I know for a fact, for I had a certain cousin x-times removed who died five years ago.  His blog floats in perpetuity in the nether world of electronic communications.

2. Why did this person try blogging in the first place?

Glancing over a couple of these dead blogs suggested nothing would be more appropriate than a decent burial.

3.  Did this blogger cave to some other social medium?

In some cases I know the answer to be "yes," because I followed the blog in question, saw the end, and later found the former blogger doing stuff elsewhere.  It is not the same thing.  I am thinking of three instances in which the writer was well-suited to blogging activity, an excellent writer with something to say.  It is sad to bid farewell to a real writer who opts to bury his or her material amongst the drivel on --------.  No disrespect to a blogger who chooses to use another platform in the manner for which it was devised, but why must they give up writing for real?

Not that everyone would agree that blogging is of necessity "writing for real."

But there are some excellent writers in the blogosphere.  I wonder if some make the switch thinking that the accumulation of several hundred friends will guarantee that their posts are flashed across those hundreds of news feeds, whereas with a blog someone must intentionally click on your site.  I would never accumulate hundreds of friends anyway, and the handful of people who regularly read this blog are of greater value to me than would be hundreds scrolling by with a yawn because they support me and are here on purpose.