Blog changes coming.

Okay, I've made a decision. First, I'm going to stop publishing on this one, because its labels have become unwieldy to be practical to search a niche blog. So, I'm starting a new one up. This one will simply be vacated, but the posts will remain up.

I will run three blogs. The first is about my personal life, Life After Shocks, which is a reference to the ECT that changed my life track.

I'll also have one which will be named AnArch Liberal, which will be my social/political blog. The name says it all. Really, once I came up that, nothing else comes close. This will also be the default blog. Like if I want to write about math or science, it will probably end up on AnArch Liberal, unless I write on them a lot, in which case I'll have to set up yet another one. 

And for the literary/story/poetry/review/pop culture commentary, I'm calling it Singing Stars & Shrieking Shadows. This one's already reserved on Wordpress, so it might take a bit longer to launch. I don't know for sure.

I'll make nightly postings to warn my readers (all two dozen of you) of the change.

Rebuild

I know I haven't blogged in a time, and I'm trying to take it in new direction. Where I would before try to protect some details about my life, keep them private, engage in self-censorship, now I'm not even gonna try. I figure there's already enough on the Internet to ruin me, and I'm of the socio-economic level now that I wouldn't notice very much if it did.

I got on the highway to head back home from my writers' group the other night, when my car began to misfire. I thought it was the EGR valve. Anyway, it didn't conk out. I got it home. I had date the next night, so I knew I had to get it repaired the next day, or find other means, because cancellation was not an option.

I took it into the shop. While the shop tested it, I went to my Dad's to take care of my brother Joe. My dad had asked for help. He had to go to the doctor. My sister couldn't take up the slack because she had to work the graveyard the night before.  I had told Dad I was having car trouble in case it broke down completely on the way to the shop. I made it. They told me it would be mid-afternoon before they got to my car, so I walked to my Dad's.

A super athlete? Presume cheating.

I'm trying to post two times a week on substantial topics, but in doing so, I'm endangering now my goal of 2,400 words to read on my novel. After days of working on the topic I want to write about, (Slut-Shaming) and discovering I have too many thoughts requiring too much background and documentation, I've decided, for this deadline, to fall back on a different topic. This is the way I'll have to write this blog, small, simple topics interspersed with bigger, more complex ones. It's called lowering expectations.

Speaking of lowered expectations, I hear that Lance Armstrong is considering a public confession of his doping. After all the vehement denials, he's thinking of coming clean. I'll believe that when I see it. This is somebody who couldn't restrain his ego and competitiveness to give himself anything less than seven Tour de France titles.

Day off, I guess.

I don't plan to take days off. It just happens that way. I'm a writer, self-employed. Every single day I get up with the idea of working on my main project. On days like today those plans don't pan out, but it's a holiday, so I suppose nature just meant it like that. This seems to happen consistently about one, sometimes two days a week. In other words, I get a day off whether I want it or not.

I have taken up to three weeks, though without such a day off. The work doesn't only include writing. I do a lot of reading. For my writer's group, I always have to read and critique somebody's work. I'd give anything to have a 1200 wpm reading speed or better, but reading does help you as a writer. Then there's studying the finer points of grammar and style mechanics.

You then have to practice. This blog would be considered practice. I find that issues I want to write about the most simply tie me in knots. My writing about my family life turned into heap, and it's taking a lot of work to unsnarl. I want to take on some more pertinent and controversial issues. However, it seems that I still respond to other people's posts far better than I can generate my own blog entries. I do this here and here. Why don't I just link them in my blog? Because by the time I get around to writing my blog, I'm trying to think of my own issues to write about, and often I respond to posts spontaneously; those are the distractions. I'm afraid if I do, the blog becomes incoherent.

It was very nice together for New Year's. My reading seemed acceptable. There were only about nine people there, a very brief reading compared to others the group has had, which was good because it left the rest of the time for partying. One guy knew about four verses of Auld Lang Syne. Which was good because nobody thought of any other way to hail the new year when it came about.

I remember as a child looking at how long the years were and thinking that living until the year 2000 would be virtual immortality. I'm fortunate.  

 

Changing the Blog Name, One Week.

I'm thinking of a new name, something better than the one I threw together for this. When I started, I just wanted to get into the habit of blogging. I couldn't think of a name then, and I couldn't think of direction the Blog would go in. I was diddling really.

Now, I'm trying to get a serious career as a writer. I'm more in the habit of blogging. So, it's time I professionalize this more.

Handles

Now I know everyone who has ever read this blog is wondering: how did you ever come up with such terrible name?

It has to do with my Youtube (Wentshow), Twitter (manfromfred) and Fanfiction.net (Madman Fred) handles, the town I used to live in, (Wentzville, hence the handle Wentshow) my broken confidence, the fact that writing horror was the only thing I had going on at the time (hence the "creepy" part).  I don't think the "geek" part requires an explanation.

To all of this, add the fact that I really didn't know what I wanted to do with this blog. It was a little too early in the game to promote my writing. I wasn't inclined then to do research for my opinion articles, I had sworn not to talk about my personal life, and I really wasn't doing anything anybody would find interesting then.

However, now that I'm writing every day and submitting work, the blog has a direction. More than that, I've repealed the rules on not talking about my personal life. So, they will some autobiographical posts.

Now that I'm posting here almost every day, there's a reason for whipping this blog into shape. However, I haven't decided on the new name yet. It'll change when I come up with a better one.

I'm tired and I'm getting depressed now. I've been cloistered in my apartment writing and reading since Tuesday. I've been working hard and I haven't been rewarded yet. But then again, I haven't been working hard for very long.