ALL APOLOGIES
A few years ago I was in Vancouver for work purposes, and as I enjoyed my first-ever sampling of Canadian bacon in Canada, I mentioned to one of my traveling companions, a marketing expert, that I maintained a blog on Goodreads.
"Do you have a regular release date for it?" He asked me immediately.
"No," I said. "I try to produce one a week but it just never seems to happen."
"Bad," he said. "Very bad. The key to a successful blog is consistency. However often it comes out, it should always be on the same day at the same time. That's the only way to maintain and build a readership."
I was annoyed, in large part because I knew he was one hundred percent correct. One of the ironic aspects of being a writer, of course, is that while we essentially live to write, we are generally undisciplined and Bohemian in our habits, making consistency very difficult. We fight against deadlines (look at George R.R. Martin, for God's sake), forget meetings, stumble over release dates, and try to make up for procrastination with speed. In short, we lack consistency. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I'm sorry my blog has been so inert for the last month or more. My main excuse, which actually does rise to the level of an explanation, is that I just completed a 2,650-mile move from California. The move came on relatively short notice, and required frantic weeks of work, because it isn't easy to deconstruct a life that took almost thirteen years to build, and transport that life across a continent during a global pandemic.
Having said all that, I am pleased to report that the last six weeks or so have given me a tremendous amount of ammunition for future blogs. The word "tremendous" has perhaps become discountenanced by the presidency of Donald Trump, but seriously folks, I have many subjects upon which I plan to opine in the coming weeks, and when I finally get completely settled here on the East Coast, I hope (notice that I don't promise: Bohemian, remember?) to finally get this blog the consistency my friend the marketing expert insisted that it have.
"Do you have a regular release date for it?" He asked me immediately.
"No," I said. "I try to produce one a week but it just never seems to happen."
"Bad," he said. "Very bad. The key to a successful blog is consistency. However often it comes out, it should always be on the same day at the same time. That's the only way to maintain and build a readership."
I was annoyed, in large part because I knew he was one hundred percent correct. One of the ironic aspects of being a writer, of course, is that while we essentially live to write, we are generally undisciplined and Bohemian in our habits, making consistency very difficult. We fight against deadlines (look at George R.R. Martin, for God's sake), forget meetings, stumble over release dates, and try to make up for procrastination with speed. In short, we lack consistency. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I'm sorry my blog has been so inert for the last month or more. My main excuse, which actually does rise to the level of an explanation, is that I just completed a 2,650-mile move from California. The move came on relatively short notice, and required frantic weeks of work, because it isn't easy to deconstruct a life that took almost thirteen years to build, and transport that life across a continent during a global pandemic.
Having said all that, I am pleased to report that the last six weeks or so have given me a tremendous amount of ammunition for future blogs. The word "tremendous" has perhaps become discountenanced by the presidency of Donald Trump, but seriously folks, I have many subjects upon which I plan to opine in the coming weeks, and when I finally get completely settled here on the East Coast, I hope (notice that I don't promise: Bohemian, remember?) to finally get this blog the consistency my friend the marketing expert insisted that it have.
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ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION
A blog about everything. Literally. Everything. Coming out twice a week until I run out of everything.
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