Changes

This blog has been operating for a little over a year.  Well, almost two years, now. Given that it started "from nothing", I consider it reasonably successful -- I have some loyal followers, have a presence on Twitter and Facebook(for what those venues are worth, have a "network" of writers with blogs, and even some nice anthropologists. How I'm connected to all of this is probably food for another blog entry, though.  And last, but not least, it seems like almost every time I post something about writing, or Neandertals, I get responses.  Sometimes, lots of them.  But as time goes by, things begin to change. And I want to change with them. So I'm going to change certain aspects of this blog, and I'm considering some other changes. 

 

First of all,I definitely plan to add some other, though related, subject matter. In this case, wolves.  I wrote about wolves on this blog a while back, but that was in the context of the possibility that "modern" humans and Neandertals might share something more than the same genus.  Let me explain. Just recently, I bought a book by the mystery writer Nevada Barr.  It's called Winter Study, and takes place on Isle Royale National Park, in winter, when there aren't any visitors, just researchers, doing one of the longest ongoing studies in science.  The wolves(and moose that live there), have been the subjects of this study for over 50 years, and a lot of what we know about wolves, comes from the database. Ms. Barr uses this work quite extensively in her novel.  Although wolves aren't part of the scenery in what I'm presently working on, they appear, and drive some of the action in work I haven't finished, but intend to return to, eventually. These are novels that are not "medieval" but take place in the near future. Furthermore, where I live, there is some evidence that wolves are returning to certain areas. Besides that,I've been "into" wolves for a long time. If I hadn't gotten "into" wolves, I probably never would have stumbled onto Neandertals in the way I did, and if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't now be writing a Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals. I might not be writing anything at all. But that's probably a subject for another post.  In any case, I now feel I need to add this as a subject related to my writing efforts, though I don't know that, to begin with, I'll be writing about them all that often.  But who knows?

 

The other changes I want to make, may involve changing the look of this blog.  I haven't quite figured out how to do this yet, so that remains somewhere in the future when I have a lot of time on my hands and can experiment.  And for now at least, the "background changes" may be relatively minor,involving, most likely, background color tweaks. I'm also considering a more major change, and that is,adding Google Adsense ads to this blog. The reason for that is, times are what they are right now,.and I'm a Starving Writer.  The ads themselves are supposed to relate to the content of this blog, and I fully intend, should I add them, to keep them discreet, and follow all the rules you're supposed to follow when adding them. The only reason for me to do this is to generate a bit of possible income. I really don't want to turn people off this blog,because I enjoy hearing from anybody kind enough to drop in, unless, of course, they turn out to be spammers, and I have ways of dealing with that.

 

I really don't want to offend anyone's sensibilities here.  This is still going to be a writer's blog.  The photoshopped Neanderlady will still be here, and so will the subject matter, with the addition of wolves. But it's time for some expansion.  So, would anyone who follows me or drops in, like to voice an opinion?  I'll cheerfully listen.  Thank you all very much.

Anne G