Reinventing the Blog Phase Three: Back at the Mothership

The third step in my new blogging setup is the refocusing of the mothership of CoIM onto my day-to-day life and random thoughts that don't fit into Categorically Thinking or The Locquacious Librarian and the Reviews of DOOM.  With luck, I'll actually be able to get out of the apartment and do enough stuff to keep the posts coming a little more frequently.  I plan on using the next few posts to get everyone caught up on what's been going on with myself and some of the major cast members: who's moved, who's gotten engaged, who's joining the military, who's had a baby . . . y'know, minor stuff like that.

I almost started this post off saying that this was the final step in my new blogging set-up, and it is -- for now.  However, as I get back into the swing of writing, I've considered starting another space to post some fiction; Bubblegum Tate has been toying with serialized fiction and was challenging me to do so as well.  Not sure if I'm quite up to that just yet, but I really would like to put some stories down in print a little more often than once a year during NaNoWriMo.  So, stay tuned for more on that if/when the urge strikes. 

But for now, three blogs and I'm out.

Reinventing the Blog: An Introduction

Greetings, my blog monkeys; long time, no see.

Due to a combination of the start of the new school year, the start of the new TV season, partaking in Rebel Monkey's Question of the Day on Facebook, and the fact that I am living sans roommate for the foreseeable future*, I have found myself once again bitten by the blogging bug. However, I've also been struck by the need to change things up a bit.

So, partly inspired by some other bloggers I follow, I'll be shaking things up a bit by branching out to a multi-blog format. CoIM will still be the place to find all of my real-world adventures** but most of my pop culture-y stuff will start to live elsewhere. This way, people like Cap'n Shack-Fu who don't give a flying flip about what TV shows I watch but still want to read about my neurotic life have a place to go without having to wade through my Top 10 [Insert Random Genre] Movies lists or TV/Movie/Book reviews -- and vice versa.

The next question you might be asking is "how multi is this multi-blog format going to be?" Well, that's a work in progress; still trying to decide just how specialized I want to be in the pop culture stuff. My initial thought was to split it up into two -- one focusing on reviews of what I'm currently watching/reading, and another that is more general thoughts on different genres, creators/actors, tropes, etc. -- but now I'm wondering if that's necessary.

Ugh, haven't even started and already second-guessing myself. The more things change . . .

Anyway, within the next day or two we shall have the introduction of the first phase in my own personal blog reinvention.



*More on that soon
**Too strong a word, perhaps?

To Blog or Not to Blog? That Is the Question.

Been a busy day, started to type up a post about NaNoWriMo earlier but wasn't able to make much headway. I could finish it and get it posted, but that would interfere with my attempts at getting onto a better sleep schedule. And so, I find myself being forced to put up a filler post in order to honor my "something every day" commitment; however, I realize that I might get a pass for posting something so frivolous once or twice, but that I'll need to step up the content/entertainment quotient quite a bit before the blog monkeys start to get restless.

And speaking of restless, it's time for me to get some shut-eye. More substantive blogging tomorrow (I hope)

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Monkeys . . .

I had every intention of starting up the blog again on January 1st, with a resolve to post something new every day . . . the fact that it's now almost a week later and I'm just now getting around to it probably doesn't surprise anyone who's been waiting on a new blog post from me since August.

It's strange looking at the numbers; in 2006 I wrote over 300 blog posts, in 2007 and 2008 that was fell below the 200 mark, and then in 2009 I wrote less than 30. Quite a drop off, I know, and there were plenty of reasons for that, but really what they all boiled down to was that 2009 was a year where I was lacking inspiration: inspiration in my blogging, inspiration in my teaching, inspiration in most anything and everything I did. I started to come out of that by the end of the year by forcing myself to partake in NaNoWriMo again -- yes, I met the word goal, but I still need to finish the novel itself -- but every time I'd sit down to write a blog post it would be like pulling teeth. I'm hoping to overcome this blogger's block the same way I made it through NaNoWriMo: by not obsessing over trying to find the perfect phrase and just accepting that sometimes getting words down on paper is enough.

With luck, this will last longer than every other time I've made this same resolution.

Cue the "We've Heard That Before" Comments

I think it's been a while since I've made a "I'm going to start blogging more regularly, honest, I mean it!" style post, so we're probably about due, huh? Honestly, my well of creativity has been dry for a while; there was a brief upsurgance during the early days of Write in the Thick of It, but the stresses and travails of life soon sucked that right out of me, and after the finger fracturing incident, I didn't feel like writing much of anything. Oh, sure, there might be small bursts of activity here and there, but overall, trying to write anything of substance was akin to trying to argue with The Lovable PigPen: painful, frustrating, and ultimately futile. Of course, the less often I wrote, the less often I felt inspired to write; sort of a "use it or lose it" type of thing. At this point I'm determined to start plugging away at the blogging thing once again, and approach it with a spin on the NaNoWriMo philosophy: write something, anything, no matter how banal or pointless or brief, in the hopes that, the more I write, the more I'll want to write, and the more I want to write, the more inspired my writing will be. My goal for next week is to have something posted every day, even if it's just a little paragraph describing exactly why I haven't written anything of substance. With any luck, I'll get so tired of writing excuses that I'll actually write something mildly entertaining.

No promises, though.

He's Not the Devil, but He Plays One on My Blog

I mentioned last week that PigPen had made a comment about how I portray him in a negative light on the blog, and how people who don't really know him might get the wrong idea. I kind of laughed it off, thinking he was being paranoid, until the past couple of days, when conversations with a few different blog monkeys revealed that PigPen's paranoia was justified: my tales of him have apparently convinced some long-distance readers that he is a "jerk."

Dang, I hate it when he's right.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson after the early days of the blog, when I was accused of portraying both Flunky and G'ovich, my two best friends in college, as bad guys*. Of course, G'ovich enjoyed playing the role of villain, even cultivating it in his guest blog post many moons ago, and I was more than happy to oblige the Eeeeeeeeevil one by portraying him as my arch-nemesis, but it still bothered me that my tongue-in-cheek joking had been construed as accurate representations of them. I addressed this in a couple of posts back in October of '05**:

CoIM is based on reality, of that there is no doubt. The people are real, the relationships are real, and the situations are real, at least up to a point. And that point is represented by my role as editor. I tend towards hyperbole and superlatives at the best of times in everyday life; when it comes to flexing my creative muscles, you can increase that hyperbolic tendency by at least a factor of a gazillion, easily . . . If you read my ramblings and think they give you a 100% accurate picture of my friends and family, may I first please slap you upside the back of your head for being so dense before directing your attention to my earlier statements about my tendencies towards hyperbole. I fall into patterns when joking around with people in real life, and those patterns get magnified by a magnitude of at least 2 gazillion when I sit down at the keyboard. I ascribe sinister motives to all of G’ovich’s actions not because I think he’s the embodiment of evil, but because it amuses me to do so. Nor do 99% of the jokes at St. Flunky’s expense have any basis in reality beyond my need for a cheap joke. . . I do worry at times that these exaggerated portrayals might alienate their subjects; if there’s one thing that can’t be over-exaggerated, it’s my tendency to worry needlessly and read too much into simple behavior. But I also sometimes have trouble knowing when enough is enough, getting caught up in the moment and not realizing that I’ve crossed that line between all-in-good-fun and ticking-people-off. I would hope that anyone mentioned here would know it was all meant in jest, but of course, even the most innocent-intentioned jests can cut like a knife if they stray too near an open wound of the psychological variety.

Now, here we are, a year and a half later, and I'm still falling into the same trap, carrying my back-and-forth with PigPen in the real world over to the blogging world, totally forgetting that some blog monkeys, having never seen PigPen and me interact, would miss the true intent of my posts. People see me talking about the jabs he takes at me, and don't seem to key in on the jabs I'm taking at him in turn.

The problem is that, for the most part, I write the blog to entertain, and I find those times when PigPen has gotten the better of me much more entertaining to relate than the times he's just been a good guy, patiently putting up with my crap. When I post a story about him mocking me, it's not an actual attempt to play the martyr, saying "Oh, poor pitiful me, being bullied by the mean old PigPen," even if that's how I coach it; no, it's really me saying "Dang, he got me good that time, gotta share that with everyone . . . and maybe I'll just take a couple of pot shots at him while I'm at it." It's admiration for his Doc-like ability to zing me (as well as a desire to zing him back) that drives such posts -- not anger. Plus, as Diva said to me, it's always fun to have an arch-nemesis to write about, and since I rarely see or talk to G'ovich, I needed somebody to fill the slot; who better than the nearest Doc analogue with a penchant for keeping me on my toes?

Now, I will admit to having one highly passive-aggressive post tinged with bitterness which was written during one of the few times PigPen managed to tick me off (as well as its only-slightly-less-bitter-but-you-can-hardly-tell-from-my-writing-but-trust-me-it-is follow-up); I have to think that it's part of what colored some people's perceptions of him, which is too bad, since it was me working out my bad mood by venting about what was really an isolated incident in my typically hyperbolic way. Not too long afterward we talked about it; we explained where each of us was coming from; he declared that his new mission was to help me break free of my negative self-image; we shook hands and called it good. And if my running off at the mouth online instead of addressing the problem head on is what caused some folk to view PigPen negatively . . . well, mea culpa, my friend; mea maxima culpa.

Even when I do mention one of his positive aspects -- such as, for example, his quest to pull me out of my self-defeatist mindset and negative attitude, which is either a fool’s errand or a hero’s journey depending on your perspective -- the positivity of it gets lost in my need to make jokes, lest my posts become sodden with sappy sentimentality. But by defusing the seriousness, I wind up diffusing the positive image in turn.

So, now, here I am, stuck with a huge batch of neurosis-fueled guilt because of the fact that some people who, more than likely, will never meet PigPen face to face in their entire lives, have a less than stellar opinion of him. For most people, this would barely cause a stir; for me, it’s enough to keep me up at night, worrying because I’ve done something bad to a friend.

So, for the record, in order to clear up any confusion and to make sure I can actually get to sleep tonight:

• PigPen is not the devil, nor is he a total jerk. What he is is a guy who lives by the motto "I wouldn't make fun of you if I didn't like you." Now, while I may be tempted at times to respond to this motto as one of the girls in the other Singles class does -- "Please, like me less, I beg of you, like me less!!!" -- the truth is that that's always been a bit of my philosophy as well, as I think huge heaping portions of CoIM (including my PigPen-centric posts) can attest.
  
  
• PigPen does not bully me. He picks on me, true, but I pick right back; remember, the key word in the phrase "mutual antagonism" is "mutual." And, while he might totally outstrip me in all areas of athletic competition, I go into such competition with full knowledge of the gap between us, meaning I have nobody to blame for my getting my butt whupped but myself.
  
  
• PigPen is highly competitive, which brings out the highly competitive side of myself when we play against each other; it's not always pretty, as I sometimes succumb to my temper when I'm not doing as well as I should, but more often than not PigPen reacts to this not by rubbing it in my face, but by giving me pointers and/or trying to snap me out of my self-destructive spiral. Not that it's always successful, mind you, since once I slip into the zone of negativity it's hard to escape, but the gesture is always appreciated.
  
  
• No matter how much crap we talk about each other, no matter how often we threaten to kill each other, no matter how often we beat the heck out of each other,*** PigPen and I are friends. In fact, I consider him one of the best friends I have right now****, which means he’s one of the go-to guys for when I’m dealing with one of my existential neurotic meltdowns; if that’s not enough to win him your pity and sympathy, I don’t know what is..

So, there you go; my attempt to fight off the “PigPen is no damn good” impression I’ve apparently given so far. Only time will tell if it did any good or not, but I know I feel better.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get some sleep; I pelted PigPen in the face with a paper projectile – totally unawares, mind you -- before he headed out for the evening, and I’m sure I’ll need all the rest I can get to weather the retribution that’s sure to come at the hand of my dear, dear friend.

*The fact that I've fallen into the same trap with describing PigPen as I did with Flunky and the Doc is interesting to me if for no other reason than I've often said that PigPen is like an amalgamation of my two old friends -- which should tell you a lot right there about why I get along with him.
**Which can be found in their entirety here and here for those of you who want a blast from the blogging past
***Okay, okay, no matter how often he beats the heck out of me
****Which is not to be confused with being my capital-b capital-f Best Friend, which is an honor and burden bestowed upon few

Something's Different, But I Can't Quite Put My Finger On It . . .

You may have noticed a slight change in the overall look of CoIM. That's because today I switched over to Blogger Beta. The biggest change is that I can now input category labels directly in Blogger, rather than going through another site like del.icio.us, which means (a) clicking on the Categorical Listings will take you directly to the posts and (b) I'm going to be much more likely to keep up with labeling. As a matter of fact, I spent a good deal of time ssigning categories to all 487 posts in the system.

Wow. 487 posts. That's getting close to being a nice, round number isn't it? Huh.

Another change I've decided to implement is hosting a few things on separate sites. For example, my Secret Origin series of posts is now located here; I plan on doing something similar with the Cast List eventually. Yes, I'm still promising to update the Cast List; who knows, it might even happen this time.

Rhymes of the Brain Dead Blogger

I've hosts and hosts
Of half formed posts
Which all have died aborning

And I can't keep
Caught up on sleep
A fact I curse each morning

As for my head
My brains are dead
So now you get this warning

That at this time
You will find rhyme
My blog-site all adorning

*************************************

Now since by the bug of blogging
You, poor soul, have been found bitten
All your time it has been hogging
For with blogging you've been smitten.

You have friends who waste time slogging
Through the mass of crap you've written
You have some who just start dogging --
These big mouths you feel like hittin'

But with words your brain is clogging
And you're typin' and a-sittin'
(When you should be out, say, jogging)
So you're weak (just like a kitten)

All their insults you keep logging
As your teeth you keep on grittin'
So you try some dialoging,
And suggest that what is fittin'
Is your grits they should be snogging
(That means "kissing" to a Briton)

Of course now your mind is fogging
And your audience is splittin'
But a dead horse you keep flogging
Are these rhymes you should be quittin'

Would you please just stop hot-dogging?
It's a life you should be gettin'!

A Call for Topics

I've been in a bit of a blogging mood recently, in case you couldn't tell. I did have an idea for a post for today, but I haven't had enough time to do it justice, so it will have to wait until next week I'm afraid. But in the meantime, I shall open up the floor to you, my blog monkeys, to answer this question:

What should I blog about next?

I know that over the past year I've made lots of statements about what certain topics and ideas I'd be blogging about, and that sometimes those ideas get lost in chaos that is my brain, so if there's some promised blog idea that you were dying to read and have been consistently cursing my name for months and months for denying you the pleasure, please, give me a reminder, and I'll do my best to do it justice.

While we're at it, let's open up the floor for other suggestions. Is there anything in particular you'd like for me to wax pathetic, I mean, poetic, on? Specific tales from elementary, high school, college, church, etc.? My thoughts on a particular book, movie, TV show, genre, or theme? An examination or explanation of a particular facet of my neurotic personality? A defense of a particular apparent contradictory piece of behavior? Other stuff? Ask now while the blogging urge is high; who knows when the opportunity will arise again?

Actual odds of anyone actually posting suggestions: 1 in a Gazillion

What a Long, Strange Year It's Been

I don't think it's any secret that my life recently has been a tad hectic, so it should come as no surprise that between moving, drastic changes at work, and lack of Internet access at home (not to mention the new Fall Season) that my overloaded brain let an incredibly important date slip through the cracks.

I can hardly believe it was only a year and 12 days ago that I made my very first blog post here on CoIM, a brief post whose title was an obscure reference to a line from Babylon 5, which was to be just the first of countless off-the-wall references to sail over the heads of scores of blog monkeys in the months to come.

It feels bizarre that I've only been doing CoIM for a little over a year, if for no other reason than there's been so many changes in my life since then. I mean, at this time last year I was still living alone, trying to finish up school, wondering what I was going to do after I finally got my Masters. Heck, back then I didn't even know (or, at the least, barely knew) Cap'n Cluck, Magic Pants, The Anti-Cap'n, Monkey Dance, PigPen, Peanut, Squiggly, The Cardinal, plus a few other nickless Singles, and yet now they're all integral members of my Cast. Which reminds me, I really need to update the Cast Lists . . .

It's also strange just how many changes CoIM itself has gone through in the course of a year, as I tried to find my voice as a blogger. If you were to compare my pre-Cabin postings with my post-Cabin postings, I think you can see a massive change in style (not to mention frequency). Have these changes been for the better or for the worse? I can't really say, although I will admit to missing my early, giddy, highly random blog-writing frenzies a bit. I'm hoping that now that I'm settling into the new place, my blogging will return to respectable levels, although I'm pretty sure the multiple-three-page-postings-in-a-day mania of my Secret Origin days are well behind me.

Anyway, let me take a moment to thank those of you who've been faithful blog monkeys, doggedly slogging through my ramblings week after week. Even if you never add to the CoIM comments section, I see the visits tracked in the stats, and your continued reading is much appreciated.

Of course, comments would be appreciated even more . . .

"Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion. "

You know, I want to be blogging more regularly, really I do. I mean, I don't like the thought of all the eager blog monkeys logging on to CoIM in hopes of a dose of my witty and insightful musing, full of pithy sayings and jocularity aplenty, only to instead be confronted with the *shudder* three-day-old posts. The only thing worse than the thought of dealing such disappointment is when Zinger points it out, taking a quote from one of my favorite movies, twisting it to his own evil purposes, and using it against me: "Todd, sometimes I doubt your commitment to CoIM."

That's just hurtful, that is.

Almost as hurtful as this link that he sent me while I was working on this post*.

Mean mean Zinger.

The lack of blogging can be attributed to a few things

• Busy schedule: The last month or so has been filled with various activities which have drained my will to blog, from moving to Singles events to a weekend visit from the parental units; add on a Parkerite gathering tomorrow and a Book Monkey gathering on Sunday -- both of which will require much driving on my part -- and you can bet I'll be brain-dead by Monday.
  
  
• Reading: I've been in reading mode the last few weeks, having finally finished Robin Hobb's The Tawny Man series, as well as having read the first two volumes of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the New Olympians series, not to mention having been browbeaten by Bubblegum Tate into starting Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. And, while I can sometimes blog while watching TV (as long as Biz-Z has left his laptop out), blogging while reading a book just isn't all that feasible.
  
  
• Good Old-fashioned Writer's Block: When I do get the urge to blog, I've been finding myself stymied by an inability to conjure the appropriate words to describe any given situation. That's why you've yet to see my Tawny Man review, even though I finished those books weeks ago; just haven't been happy with any of my efforts at summarizing the plot. I know when I get like this I need to just power through and keep writing, much like I did when working on In a Cabin, but at least with that I knew that I could go back and edit it later before sending it off to Flunky; with the blog, once it's out there I don't like going back and tinkering with it unless absolutely necessary. But, at this point, in order to demolish the writer's block (not to mention get a Zinger-sized blog monkey off my back), I guess I'll just type up whatever substandard, pedestrian crap pops into my head. And with that in mind . . .

I had a bit of a surprise at lunch today; ordered a cheeseburger plain (of course), but when I bit into it, it definitely wasn't plain, but the taste wasn't the usual mayo or mustard or onion or whatever they usually leave on there when they screw up my order. I took off the bun, and saw a whitish sauce with green things sprinkled in it. I promptly spit out the hunk of burger (it was a really big bite), and took the unmasticated portion back up to the front. The cashier double-checked what she had typed in, and saw that she had hit plain and so declared "Well, it wasn't my fault," only to have the girl who had prepared the burger tell her that actually, it was: you see, when she had pressed the "plain" button, her finger slipped and hit another button afterwards . . . a button marked "pesto."

I still can't get the taste out of my mouth.

Hope that brief tale of my discomfort will appease the ravenous hoard of blog-starved blog monkeys clamoring for blood. And if not, well, I'll leave you with one of Dr. G'ovich's favorite songs back in the Parker days.

Disclaimer: major expletives, while deleted, are still easily made out, for those of you with sensitive ears.



*I told Zinger I was going to work the link into the post I was writing. His reply: "I look forward to seeing it next Wednesday"

Smacked Upside the Head

Well, like any good masochistic blogger, I submitted CoIM for review to the curmudgeons at I Talk Too Much, who take malicious glee in tearing apart the hopes and dreams of bloggers everywhere. I submitted a while back, and of course they choose my "I'm brain-dead and am posting pure filler and YouTube links" phase to review the site. Consequently, the review went like this:

Just another work-a-day, ordinary, plain white bread, POS blog.

Nothing special at all, one way or t’other.

Big ol’ “HEY!” fat meh.

I also got 1 out of 5 "Smacks", which might sound bad, but at least I didn't get the boot, the "golden finger," the "stinky fish," or even "negative smacks."

I wonder how far into the archives the reviewer went (if at all); was his "this is blah" reaction just to the recent, very admittedly "blah" stuff, or did he poke around a bit to my older, wordier posts, and still come to the "blah" conclusion? I like to think that it's the former (self-delusion is my friend!), and that if he had read more, then his reaction might have been stronger.

Not positive, mind you; I have no illusions that me talking about my life and my pop culture addictions would be enough to earn me any better smacking results than I got, but at least it might have garnered a more impassioned review.

I didn't even get any full-on expletives, dagnabit!

And you just know that Redneck Diva is going to be rubbing her 3 Smacks rating in . . .

Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!

A few random things.

• since every time a new blog monkey jumps on board the CoIM express they tend to ask the same things, I decided to make an F.A.Q.; you can see the link on my sidebar
• Courtesy of Zinger: a music video blast from the past
• I've lost track of the number of times I've had to forcibly remind myself that today is not Friday; tomorrow is going to be a looooooooong day
• Also courtesy of Zinger: fun messing with Best Buy employees
• They are releasing the original cuts of Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi on DVD; responses have varied from joy over being able to hear the Ewok victory song and see Han shoot first to anger and disappointment at what feels like money-grubbing on Lucas's part
• I have every intention of having an updated Singles cast page up before the weekend is over
• I have had this intention before, so do not be surprised if it does not come to pass
• I skimmed through practically every post I've written so far (minus the Secret Origins series; didn't feel like depressing myself) in preparation for my F.A.Q., and I noticed a steady decline in Parkerite focused posts; why, it's been forever since I've called G'ovich Eeeeeeeeevil or taken a pot shot at Flunky. Shameful. We'll have to see what we can do about that
• Being in contact with Diva, Cedric, et al again has made me nostalgic for the days of band and competitive speech (man, that sounds so geeky), so expect some Wyandottian themed posts sometime soon. And speaking of Wyandotte . . .
• While doing one of those mindless surveys on MySpace about Jr. High, I got the idea to do a search for my school fight song, only to discover that it was nowhere to be found online. Well, as the first born son of the woman who's pretty much single-handedly responsible for almost every high school graduate for the past 20+ years knowing the words to the school song, I believe it is my duty to rectify that situation.
  
  March Wyandotte High
  With your colors on high
  And shout proudly for
  Dear old school we love so well
  Sing to our dear banner of
  Black and white
  So we will be true
  As we march onward and yell
  The bears will fight!
  The bears will fight!
  The bears will fight fight fight fight fight fight fight!
  The bears will fight!
  The bears will fight!
  The bears will fight fight fight fight fight fight fight!
  Here's to the school that we
  Love best of all
  We march with her colors
  Of black and white on high
  Loyal and true we will
  Come to her call
  And prove that her spirit
  And pep will never die
  Rah-rah!
• I'm going to go now so I can plot with Bubblegum Tate on the best ways to shamelessly promote They Came From Earth-K Our goal: at least one non-spam comment before 2056; keep your fingers crossed!
  

Free-form Friday

I've had a hard time getting myself to focus long enough to do my regular ginormous postings recently, so I've decided to bite the bullet and just start posting more miniscule postings a bit more often during these creative droughts; to kick it off, here's some random thoughts on the joys of memes.

No sooner had I made a snarky comment about how Rocket was practically the only one who responded to my last tag then my friend iamam finally got around to it; at least she had a good excuse. Also, Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate has assured me that he will respond to yesterday's tag; I'll be sure to keep you all updated on if and when any others respond.

I have to say that I kind of like the whole meme/tag format for blog posts; at times they spark my creative energies pretty easily. I've now started searching for regular meme sites, but most of the ones I've found so far are, to put it bluntly, pretty lame. I suppose I could try to come up with my own memes like Rocket's friend did, but that kind of sabotages the whole "being inspired by others" aspect. Plus, a lot of these meme lists can serve as a way to expand my blog monkey base.

So, if anyone out there knows of a good meme list, or has some ideas for blog topics, feel free to send 'em my way.

Or, I Could Use the Time for That Other Project I Was Thinking About . . .

I spent most of last night writing the catch-up posts, almost got all of them finished. I was hit with a burst of inspiration: I could post two a day and get caught up in no time! But then a voice from deep inside yelled "You're an idiot!"

"Hmm, that inner voice has a point," I conceded grudgingly, "maybe I should listen to what it has to say."

So, after a lengthy inner dialogue, during which I said some hurtful things to myself (my inner voice can be so danged negative sometimes), I decided that I would go ahead and space the posts out to one a day; this would give me almost a week of ready-made posts, which would enable me to write other things in the meantime and build up a bit of a buffer for those days when inspiration fails to strike. That way I won't have to listen to Zinger calling me Kurtz* all day.

Of course, for this to work, I would actually have to write stuff on the days I already have something ready to post, instead of just thinking "Oh, I have a post all ready for today, no need to bother with anything else." In other words, it shall be a battle between my lazy, slacker side and my need-to-please-others side; I'm not too hopeful about a positive outcome here, but it's nice to dream, isn't it?

*Scott Kurtz of PvP is notorious for updating his website late in the day

Return of the Rambling, or " . . . and Knowing Is Half the Battle"

While I am not yet ready to make it available to anyone and everyone who could stumble across the blog, I have slowly started to distribute TOFKAP to various friends and family members; primarily those who (a) are the most likely to read that sort of genre anyway or (b) have been the most interested in/pestered me the most about TOFKAP. Oh, and for those of you wondering, the title of TOFKAP is In a Cabin in the Woods, which I will probably refer to as Cabin from here on out rather than TOFKAP. Until, y'know, I get struck by the urge to call it something else. Anyway, the whole process has been an interesting one on several levels, but now as I wait to hear feedback from the latest round of readers, I find myself pondering my reasons for writing in the first place.


First of all, I write primarily for myself; I also write because I have no choice. Ideas pop into my head and refuse to fully disperse until I see them through to their inevitable conclusion. Sometimes they can get submerged for a time, but they always come bobbing back up to the surface. Take for example the second and fourth stories in Cabin: some of the characters in them have been living in my head since I was in elementary school; the basic plot of the second story has remained mainly unchanged since Junior High; the first written draft was attempted on my ride back from a leadership conference in Breckenridge, CO my Senior year; the next draft was started about 8 years later, while I was waiting to do my interview for my first job at UNT; and now, it's finally complete. Sort of. But, more on that some other time. The important thing here is that most of this was just stuff that I did to entertain myself, composing it all in my head but rarely taking the time and energy to put it into print. Which, in retrospect, is a good thing; when I think back to the early "drafts" of these stories, I cringe.

So, yes, I write primarily for myself; and yet, at the same time, I almost always feel compelled to share my writing with others. Why is that? Is it a desire to entertain others? A search for validation? A masochistic streak? I can't say with any certainty, but I do know that for some reason, my compositions don't feel "real" to me until they've been shared with somebody else. This goes for anything I write, from fiction to movie/TV reviews to cathartic unloading of psychological baggage. Until I get confirmation that it's been experienced by another person, it's not truly complete. That's one of the reasons I started the blog, so I could have an easy venue for distributing my ramblings, one which, ideally, would encourage others to engage in some sort of give and take.

Now we get into the tricky part of the relationship between reader/writer; the giving and receiving of feedback. You have no idea how gratifying it was to find out that people were actually reading the blog; you see, no matter how much my writings amuse and entertain me, I have a hard time convincing myself that they'll do the same for others. So, to find out that others were not only reading my ramblings, but enjoying them, was surprising and fulfilling at the same time. Of course, knowing that it was a bit of a success just ramped up my fear of eventual failure since I now had a standard to maintain, but hey, if I didn't have something to obsess over I wouldn't be worthy of the name Cap'n Neurotic, now would I? Still, when it comes to blog-feedback, I tend not to obsess as much as I might on other things; I know Dr. G'ovich isn't a huge fan of my TV Tuesday posts, but I also know there are at least three regular readers who are, so it balances out. I do worry that the sporadic quality of my posting during the last couple of months due to distraction with Cabin might have alienated some of the blog monkeys, but really, there was nothing I could do about that; practically every waking moment not spent at work or church was consumed with working through the ins and outs of my experiment in writing. It was a strange feeling; after such a long time of writing primarily for myself, I found myself in a situation where I was also writing for others on a daily basis; but then I was suddenly thrust back into writing primarily for myself again, and the writing for others suffered for it. It shouldn't have bothered me so much; I doubt there's a single regular blog monkey who isn't a personal friend, co-worker, or family member, and I'm not getting any recompense for this outside of the warm fuzzies generated by knowing I'm providing a small bit of entertainment (or at the very least mild distraction) to others. But I felt like I'd entered into some sort of social contract, and by skimping on the blogging I was breaking that contract and letting people down. Yes, I have issues.

Back to the matter which got this rambling started: In a Cabin in the Woods. As you now know, it started out as a surprise Christmas gift for Flunky, which is one of the reasons I was so secretive about it on the blog. But as Cap'ns Cluck and Disaster can tell you, I was also secretive about it in real life as well. Why? Hard to say; I think in the beginning it was a fear that I wouldn't be able to pull it off like I wanted, that it would be derailed by writer's block or burnout or lack of talent or something else; by not disclosing the exact details I was protecting myself from dashing other's expectations. There was also a bit of "what if they think it sounds like a stupid idea?" working there. Honestly, for that first week or two, I wasn't sure if I was ever going to share the full details of what I was doing with more than a handful of people. But, as I dove into it more, and became more convinced that this was something that I was going to be able to pull off with some level of success, I started to broaden the circle of who knew about it. There was little rhyme or reason to why I shared with some people and not with others; I was working totally on gut instinct there. That was when I recruited my dad and Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate into being test-readers; Wrath teh Berzerkr later volunteered himself as the third after I asked for his opinion on some of the names and terms I made up for the final story. Of course, my dad was the only one who read the whole thing and gave me much in the way of feedback before I sent Cabin to Clan Flunky.

From the instant I sent off the first portion of the first draft to anyone, I was on pins and needles waiting for feedback; it’s one thing to put up some random bit of rambling on the blog each day, but to try to create a world out of whole cloth, complete with fully realized characters and a plot that isn't filled with logical inconsistencies and holes you can drive a Mack truck through, well, that's a horse of a different color. That nervousness has doubled and trebled with each copy I've sent out; I both crave and dread feedback. What sort of response will constitute a happy ending for me? Will I be satisfied as long as the positive reactions outnumber the negative, even if only by one? Or will I let even a single negative reaction harsh my buzz? Should I give more weight to certain opinions over others? How should I take a complaint held by one person if nobody else echoes it? Most importantly, in the end, which is more important: satisfying myself, or satisfying the reader?

So far, I've received substantial feedback from three people, all positive, for the most part. I mean, I can't really complain about someone saying that they read all 117 pages in one night because it was such a compelling read, can I? Another of the reviewers was very straightforward about what she thought did and didn't work, which I appreciated; most of the cons she pointed out were things which had concerned me as I was writing, with maybe one point of criticism taking me by surprise. Still, at this point I think having three people who've enjoyed it overall counts as a moral victory of sorts. Of course, it’s easy to say that when I haven’t received any overwhelmingly negative feedback . . .

I realize that Cabin isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, one of the pitfalls of a portmanteau* piece partaking of different styles and genres. After reading one story (which is very much of the horror genre), my mom proclaimed that she knew she should have made me read more Hardy Boys when I was younger instead of Stephen King. In a similar vein, Flunky Lover told me that she wasn't as thrilled with the horror-tinged stories as she was the others, since that's not something she typically enjoys. I think that's one of the things that's going to interest me the most; finding out which stories were enjoyed by which readers, and why.

I've been asked by a few people about what sort of feedback I'm looking for, to which I have replied, "I dunno." Before sending it off to Flunky I was mainly concerned with whether it all made sense to anyone besides myself; after Dad finished it all and said it made sense to him, that took care of that. So, what sort of feedback should you give me? Whatever you want to tell me, as long as it's truthful; not looking for false praise here. Just want to say you liked it? Fine. Want to shower me with praises? Double fine. Want to tell me that you didn't care for it, and here's exactly where I went wrong? I'm bracing myself even as we speak; honestly, as long as it's a bit more substantial than just saying "This stinks!” I'm game. Don’t want to say anything at all? That’s your prerogative; I really only want to hear back from you if you feel compelled to share. Okay, that's a lie: I always want to hear back from anyone who reads anything write (compulsive need for validation, don’tcha know), but if you don't want to, I promise I won't hold it against you. Much. As for how to share your thoughts, feel free to email, IM, phone, and/or ambush me face-to-face; I’ll strive to take both praise and criticism graciously.

Now, if you’re one of those who has not been selected to receive a copy of Cabin, but would like to subject yourself to a series of horror, SF, and fantasy stories penned by yours truly, then please, feel free to pester me, and I’ll see about maybe hooking you up.

All right, that went on a lot longer than I had planned, and veered into directions I hadn’t anticipated; Cap’n Rambling is back!



*portmanteau: term used to describe a work consisting of several shorter stories with a common linking device which often serves as a final full story in its own right; popular format for horror films, particularly the Amicus films of the 70s; Stephen King’s Creepshow, Creepshow 2 and Cat’s Eye are some more recent examples. Now you know . . .

Thinking Out Loud Thursday: On the Road Edition

Good afternoon, my blog monkeys. I just made it in to Miamuh and thought I'd post a quick something before you all went into CoIM withdrawals.

I spent most of my Thursday morning drive thinking out loud to my tape recorder, almost exclusively about ideas for future blog posts. Some things that you will probably be seeing in the near future include:

• A recounting of my trip to San Diego with Wrath, Flunky, and G'ovich
• Another instalment of "It's a Guy Thing"
• Musings on senses of humor, insides jokes, and catchphrases
• Tales of T.A.G.: Parkerite and Book Monkey editions
• What I look for in a TV show
• More on Little Man Stud and The Old Man
• Celebrity Game Show Night with the Singles
• How did the whole monkey thing get started in the first place?

Think that covers most of it. There will also be a lot o' talk about the behind-the-scenes goings-on regarding the Primary Obsession, after its not-too-far-off-knock-on-wood unveiling.

So, quite a bit to look forward to, eh? Almost makes up for this rinky-dink excuse for a post, huh? Huh?

Yeah, didn't think so. Was worth a try, though.

Relinquishing Control. Sort of.

Let's talk about something we haven't covered for a while: nicknames!


Some of you may have noticed that Cap'n Cluck has taken the liberty of rechristening herself Cap'n Click, a reference to her love of photography. She had brought up the name change a while back, and I have to admit I didn't exactly jump at the suggestion; "Click" might be more reflective of her personality, but I just liked the sound of "Cluck" better, even if it did just reference a one-time activity when I was first getting to know her. However, this got me thinking about the nicknames, and how much say the blog monkeys should have in how they’re known here. I've already let my nicknaming be swayed at least twice, once by Rebelmonkey, who announced that she was no longer going by "The Wiz," and once by Smooth Money's Girl (soon to be Mrs. Smooth Money, don't think I mentioned their engagement last month, so, um, belated congrats) who requested that a pre-existing nickname not be used. So, why should Cap'n Cluck wanting to change her name be any different?

I think the biggest factor is that, unlike the other two, I actually came up with the Cap'n Cluck moniker on my own, and am therefore a little proprietary about it. When it comes to my creative endeavors, I can be a bit of a control freak; when I like the sound of something, that's the way it has to be, end of argument. But, should I let my own obsessive nature interfere when it comes to someone’s preference of how they should be addressed?

Another nickname issue that has arisen recently is that whole "Todd stinks at making up nicknames" thing. Within the past few weeks I've learned that two of my friends who don't belong to any of the three main groups have become at least semi-regular blog monkeys, but are currently nicknameless; likewise there are several still-nicknameless members of The Singles who have been a large part of recent activities I've partaken in, a few of whom are constantly being brow-beaten by Cap'ns C. and D. to give the blog a try, so it would be nice to be able to reference them by "name." Drawing big ol' blanks in the naming department right now, though, since all of my creativity has been sucked into the black hole that is the Primary Obsession and, as previously noted, not that creative there to begin with.

So, here's what we're going to do:

(1) If you are a blog monkey who has been fortunate enough to be blessed with a nickname, but are unfortunate enough to have a nickname you don’t care for, all you have to do is say "Hey, Cap'n N., could you call me X instead?" and, as long as the name is not pornographic, blasphemous, scatological, or in any other way obscene or derogatory (and as long as it doesn't contain more letters than the phrase "Fellow Book Monkey and Blogger Bubblegum Tate") I will make the requisite change. Probably.

(2) If you are a blog monkey who has not been fortunate enough to be blessed with a nickname, and you have one all ready and raring to go, just give me a shout out saying “Hey, Cap’n N., could you call me Y so that I can finally get mentioned on your #$*($ blog?” and, as long as it conforms to the stipulations listed above, you shall thus be named. More than likely.

(3) If you are a blog monkey who knows of someone in my social sphere who has not yet been blessed with a nickname, and you have an idea for one that adheres to all that mumbjo jumbo up there, then just holla at me, like “Yo’, Cap’n N, I gots this kizzle idizzle for a nicknizzle, fo’ shizzle, just calls the homie Zizzle” then I will take it under advisement. Possibly maybe.

Man, it feels good to make such a decisive stand, y'know? Glad that’s out of the way.

Oh, and before I forget: I do now decree that she who was once known as "Cap'n Cluck" shall henceforth be known as Cap'n Click.

Oh, wait, on second thought, hold off on that for just one minute . . .



Okay, there, that’s better: now she'll henceforth be known as Cap'n Click

Let's Look at the Stats

And now, prepare yourselves for an exciting backstage look at the wonderful world of blogging, as I expound upon one of my minor obsession: site statistics. Sounds thrilling, don't it?

I am endlessly fascinated by the blog stats provided by SiteMeter. Every time I see a new IP address pop up in the logs, the amateur detective in me springs to life, determined to decipher exactly who the latest blog monkey could possibly be. Sometimes it's easy to decipher, especially when the visit time synchs up with a posted comment; sometimes it drives me crazy, since the location listed does not always reflect the actual location; I only recently discovered that a mysterious I.P. from Las Vegas that has been frequenting the site actually belonged to a former co-worker who now lives in Arkansas. Most of the people who visit while at their work computers (only during their approved break and lunch times, I'm sure) show up as being located at their employer's central offices, be it in Virginia, Massachusetts, or Canada. It helps when the domain name is the same as the employer, unless, of course, there are multiple people from the same office checking the site; UNT pops up a lot in my logs. Sometimes the referral URL provides a clue, such as when out of town Zinger uses his online bookmarks to visit; when I noticed that someone in Texas had used the link from the PFL message board to visit the blog and spend quite a bit of time browsing through my archives the day after The Eskimo learned I had a blog and had talked about him on it, well, you don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out. I like seeing who visits the site multiple times, checking back for updates and new comments; I like seeing who visits once or twice a week, getting a week’s worth of ramblings read at once; I like seeing who is just now discovering the site, and spending many hours trudging through my endless ramblings. While it’s not as good as actual verbal and written feedback, it does help keep me motivated to keep blogging away.

Just as fascinating as trying to ferret out the identities of the new blog monkeys is examining the referral URLs to see what sort of crazy searches have lead complete strangers to my little corner of the Internet. Some of the more interesting ones (to me at least), include: a search for "half-asian girls new lebanese" and a search for "cyber sex"; that one made me very happy: confusing and annoying sexual deviants is fun! I also got some hits from a search for "nietzsche tragic optimism"; it was this search which led me to discover that I had finally been indexed by Google; for a few days, CoIM was the number one hit for that search, as well as searches for "bubblegum tate," although now the Tate search actually takes you to some Futurama pages, which I suppose is tolerable, since that's where his nick came from. Anyway, the Google discovery lead me to start randomly googling for certain terms to see if CoIM would show up on the first results page; it was by doing this that I discovered that not only is Gutterboys the name of a band, it's also apparently the name of an erotic gay novel. And yes, I only wrote the last sentence to see how long it's going to be before I get a hit from a search for "erotic gay novel."

I was pleased to get a hit from someone doing a search for "eeeeeeeeevil" the other day, and was surprised that there were at least 400 other hits besides CoIM. I was also surprised that I got a hit for "disc world 'behold the turtle of enormous girth'" since the turtle quote was actually from the Dark Tower novels and not Pratchett's books (I’d already gotten a hit from a search for the quote itself a few days earlier). I'd have to say, though, that probably the most frequent search term which leads people here is "yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away" or some variation thereof. Honestly, I get at least 5 or 6 hits from that search a week. Somehow, I doubt they find what they're looking for.

While all of these random hits are entertaining to me, sadly none of them have translated into new readers as far as I'm aware. No, CoIM continues to be frequented solely by friends, family, and co-workers; my days of Internet infamy have not yet arrived.

Wait for it . . .

TV Tuesday post up later today, sorry for the delay, but, I've got a good excuse: I'm a lazy bastage.