Sickness, health, and writing

Gentle readers:

I got out of the hospital after a long stay(way too long, IMO, but it was necessary. unfortunately), and am now, more or less comfortably back home. Basically, because I'd been, among other things, spending too much time at my beloved computer, writing, and doing other things, I ended up with a nasty sneaky lymphoma which fortunately only affected my right leg and right side, although there was fluid buildup in the lungs on the left side for a little while. Fortunately nothing went to the brain or heart! I consider myself lucky, and will keep it that way.

This has affected my writing schedule somewhat, in that I have to write in short bursts rather than long hauls, but that's to the good. It sort of forces me to get up and move around, which is what I should have been doing anyway to begin with, I also have pills and chemotherapy to deal with. The chemo is every 3 weeks, so I have time to recover and get stronger, and that's what I'm trying to do.

But the writing will keep coming, no matter what. It/s one of the most important things that keeps me going, and I'm going to finish and publish this masterpiece if it's the last thing I do(sometimes I feel like it is!)

In any case, the blogs may come slower; there doesn't seem to be much in Neandertals, I didn't see anything much in Medieval, either, nor on My Beloved Wolves. But I won't stop. Maybe I'll just blog the first chapter of my first book, for you folks to read, if you want, and you can see what you think.

I have a feeling these will be exciting and challenging days,
Anne G

More changes to the blog

All:

Just a quick note to let everybody know(if you can't see it already), that I've changed the blog background.  The reason? Someone suggested it was difficult to read and caused eyestrain.  I don't want that, and believe it or not, I am responsive to these things.  If you have any likes or dislikes about this latest change, Gentle Readers, I will listen carefully

I've got more followers, and I'm happy

In fact, I've got 20 of them now, I didn't expect to haveany when I began this blog!
Anne G

A plethora of goodies on various subjects

There is an absolute plethora of bloggable subjects cluttering up various parts of my computer today, and I didn't even realize it!  I've been busy the past few days, mostly with more writing(have completed or revised two more chapters in the second book of my Great Medieval Science Fiction Trilogy With Neandertals), and haven't, lately, had much time to do any serious blogging. 

 

But never fear, there's plenty to blog about.  First, two stories from Julien Riel-Salvatore's fine blog, A Very Remote Period Indeed,  both on the presence of Neandertals in Poland north of the Carpathians, some 80,000 years ago.  Then there's an equally fascinating piece on preserving an 11th century bridge in England, with sugar, on Got Medieval.  And let us not forget My Beloved Wolves!  There are stories and updates on the Wolves of the High Arctic(in this case, Ellesmere Island -- if you don't exactly know where that is, you might want to search through Google Earth or an atlas).  Their travels are interesting.  All wolves' travels are interesting, for a variety of reasons.

 

Last but not least, I have my own thoughts about why only certain people are interested in medieval history and society, and why few readers of historical and other genres deal with "medieval" except as fantasy.  I will also have something to say about how this impacts my own history, and my writing. 

 

In any case, stay tuned.  I'll be blogging about some of this stuff, a little each day or so.  I'm not deserting anybody, though I haven't started 2010 with a huge number of blogs.  But that's another story to tell -- later.  Much later.

Anne G

State of the blog

Happy New Year, dear blog readers!

 

This is the first post of the year 2010.  It is also the first year I've decided to do a "State of the Blog" address, similar to "State of the Union"(though I can hardly compare myself to the President of the US).  2009 has been an interesting year.  While writing my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals, I've also been writing book reviews.  These have mainly been mysteries, historical or otherwise, but they are all related, in some way, to what I'm doing(though I'm not writing a mystery.  I wouldn't have any idea of how to go about it).  These mysteries have been quite good, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them, and this is reflected in the reviews I've done. It's a bit odd, because while I'm writing a work of "romantic science fiction"(for lack of a better term), I haven's seen any fantasy or science fiction that I considered worth reviewing.  I think this is too bad, but I am looking forward to the possibility that this will change as 2010 rolls along. I am not neglecting anything that looks good, and there were plenty of mysteries and historical fiction I didn't review, either.  I just didn't consider these interesting enough(to me) to make the effort of reviewing them.

 

I hope, though,that the authors were satisfied with my efforts.  I have also become a guest blogger and have acquired "followers", which pleases me. I'm always happy when someone thinks my blog posts are interesting enough to follow and/or comment on. During 2009, I also added the subject of wolves to the subjects I cover on this blog. The reason for that is, although wolves don't appear in my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece(s) With Neandertals, they appear in some other works that I have waiting to be finished, and they're an important part of the "scenery" in those places(hint:  these take place partly in a very fictional former timber and milling town in Western Washington State, and there's a convenient forest nearby where the wolves have trotted themselves.  There are Neandertals there, too, hiding in plain sight; it's in the near future).  It also reflects the fact that a couple of packs of wolves have, in recent years, begun to recolonize parts of My Fair State, and I'm happy to have them back.

 

I've gotten a lot of feedback from many of my posts, which also satisfies me.  One I recently got seemed to really like this blog, and pointed out that my efforts have much improved since I started it.  I'm glad of that, too. And I'm not surprised.  First efforts are just that -- first efforts, and they are often not as good as later ones.  I think in part, this improvement had to do with the fact that the first few posts I did, were a little less focused than later ones.  I have learned not to just "blather on", and I've learned to focus my efforts on just a few things, rather than "going all over the place".  And I am now trying to avoid writing vague posts about "creativity" and the like, unless I have something really "focused" to say about it.

 

I've also gotten a few brickbats.  In one case(and I think the person who posted the "brickbat" deserves a more thoughtful reply to the blog comment than I could give in a "comment" section.  I was also coming down with something nasty that I think I've finally recovered from, so I may have seemed a little more "intemperate" than I intended to be at the time.  But more on that later.  I will just put up another post.  On the other hand, what is a blog without some controversy?  I'm not one of those innumerable "political" blogs that thrive on controversy, and I don't generally publish such things unless they have pretty enormous significance, e.g. the 2008 elections and their results.  Still, some people may not understand or even dislike what I have to say.  I sometimes take risks, as everyone must, from time to time.  But all in all, I don't even mind this.  It goes with the territory. 

 

For the future, expect to see more book reviews, more commentary on writers and writing, if appropriate, comments on various Neandertal-related finds, anything interesting related to medieval England, and last, but not least, the state of wolves, especially Washington wolves.  Anything reasonably related to the territory covered in my Great Science Fiction Masterpiece(s) With Neandertals is fair territory, so expect these things when they start coming.  I encourage more people to "follow" me, if they wish to.  Finally, if anyone  leaves a comment, I will make every effort to reply, though some replies may take longer for me to "process" than others.  In the meantime,  keep reading my blog, throw brickbats if you really disagree with me, or don't(I'd much rather have the latter, but as I said, some brickbats are probably inevitable, even here).  And whatever else you do, don't take yourselves, or the world too seriously.  That can be depressing! 

 

Enjoy your life and your reading life while you can,

Anne G

Computers! I love 'em, I hate 'em!

IAs of yesterday, I have finished(pant, gasp!) uploading Michelle Cameron's answers to my questions, for the blog tour spot on The Writer's Daily Grind.  It turned out to be a horrible chore.  This was probably partly because I didn't really know what I was doing, when I tried to save her e-mail to a file I could retrieve for this blog.  You see, I thought I sent it to Live Writer, which is Microsoft's connection with Blogger. 

 

Well, surprise, surprise.  When I  looked for the relevant file, I couldn't find it.  Anywhere!  I couldn't find the relevant e-mail, which I always save in a special file on my e-mail.  I looked and looked.  Then I looked in just about every reasonable-sounding file on my hard drive, that I could think of.  No luck.  At last, however, I found the relevant e-mail, questions, answers, and all, in some file like "Recent activity" or something like that.  So I then tried to copy it here, to my blogging program, Live Writer, so I could send it to The Writer's Daily Grind.  Unfortunately, it didn't copy, for some reason I couldn't fathom(maybe a computer can).  All I had was a filed post with my questions.  No answers from her.  So I had to start the search again!

 

Fortunately, I more or less remembered where I"d found it before, so I went back to that file and made sure, this time, that I did a copy-and-paste.  And lo and behold, it worked!  My relief, at that point was boundless.  But what I had to go through to get it successfully uploaded to my blog, was positively enervating. 

 

And that, dear Gentle Readers, is why I love, and hate, computers!  They are very convenient beasts, but they have minds of their own,and if you don't do whatever it is you're trying to do, the way the computer wants you to do it, you end up tearing whatever hear is in your head.  And that can be very, very frustrating. 

 

However, on balance, I must say that I wouldn't be where I am today, certainly not as a writer, without the help I've gotten from people on the other side of "online", both with regard to the "prehistoric" and the "medieval" aspects of my writing.  And that doesn't even take into account, the "writing" aspect, which is help I've gotten over the months and years, from some absolutely lovely people, and for whose existence, I can only say I'm extremely grateful.  And without computers and the Internet, all of this would, essentially, have been impossible, at least in the form I'm getting my research and my writing, now. 

 

But still. . .

Anne G

Michelle Cameron's new book, "The Fruit of Her Hands"

Toda, I'm doing something a little different. Michelle Cameron, author of the recently published  The Fruit of Her Hands, is going on a blog tour.  I am one of the people she has chosen for her blog tour, and I really feel quite privileged to have been chosen.  Here, I will simply introduce her.  The Fruit of Her Hands is about one of her ancestors, a Jewish woman living in 13th century France, where she witness a mob burning all the copies of the Torah and Talmud the mob can get their hands on.  She has secretly studied these books, with her father, a rabbi or scholar in the Jewish community of 13th century Paris.  This is about her life, and what she had to do to preserve her people's knowledge, and her own integrity.  Though I haven't yet had a chance to read the book, it sounds very exciting.  So I will, in a subsequent(very subsequent) post, start asking her some questions about the book and how she came to write it, in preparation for this blog tour, which she will presumably be answering.  As I say, I feel very privileged

 

Thank you, Michelle Cameron,

Anne G

I guess the blogosphere is noticing me, for whatever that's worth

I guess I'm getting famous.  Or something.  I guest blog from time to time on one of Nan Hawthorne's blogs, Early Medieval Britain .  Nan Hawthorne is a writer, and before I go any further, I would like to put in a shameless plug for her book  An Involuntary King, which I reviewed several months ago.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and want to simply say that I'd like to share my enjoyment with others "out there".  If you go to her blog, and are interested in reading it yourselves, Gentle Readers, there will be information on how to order it.    I've been meaning to do this for a long time.

 

In any case, Nan Hawthorne writes on a variety of medieval-themed subjects, and she is particularly interested, as the title of this particular blog suggests, in early medieval England.  Basically, that is the time of the Anglo-Saxons, and since my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece is set in roughly the same period, I consult her blog rather regularly. 

 

Not too long ago, I found an interesting little piece on one of the science news feeds I also regularly consult(mostly for human-evolution related things, but you never know what you'll find on a science-related news feed).  It wasn't very long, but it described how some scientists in California had discovered some 45 million year old yeast, which apparently was still good, and some Northern California brewery brewed some ale with it.  I uploaded a short piece several weeks back about this  experiment on her blog, suspecting that it might  be of interest to the readers of her blog.  I didn't expect any response, though the methods used might have been fairly close to those used in Anglo-Saxon times.  But lo and behold, Nan posted a very nice piece  on how ale was actually brewed then. By the way, and just a quick note, the difference between beer and ale is, ale isn't brewed with hops, and beer is.  In medieval times, before the widespread adoption of hops as flavoring, brewers, many of whom were women -- a perfectly respectable trade for the female half of the population at that time -- generally flavored their brew with a variety of flavorings.  Bog myrtle as been mentioned.  Also honey, or just about any flower or plant that wasn't poisonous.  The quality tended to vary, of course, but the flavors so produced must have been quite interesting. 

 

In any case, on top of having one of my "lupine" posts being mentioned by a Real Anthropologist, I'm thrilled!  I'm getting famous, more or less.  And I'm very happy about it!

Anne G

Somebody likes my wolf stories(yay!)

I must be getting famous. Greg Laden's blog mentioned my post about the second wolf pack in Washington State in his Blogospherics column.  I've been "acquainted" with Dr. Laden for some time now.  He's an anthropologist whose main work has been in Africa, which is not exactly known for its canids.  That is, unless you count the endangered African wild dogs, or jackals.  Well, they are canids, although the former are not very closely related to wolves.  Jackals are in the genus Canis.  Well, anyway, it was nice of Dr. Laden to do this. . . .we have our disagreements on some things, but I really appreciate this.

 

Thanks, Dr. Laden!\

Anne G

A hearty welcome to a fellow blogger

A wonderful author not many have heard of, Helen Hollick, has entered the blogosphere. Her blog, Helen Hollick -- Historical Fiction and Adventure History has recently started, and not only am I introducing her here, but I am adding her to my Honorable Blogroll.  She is currently writing a series set in the Golden Age of Piracy, about pirates, naturally, but she has also written an Arthurian trilogy and is working on the third book of a trilogy set near "my" period(late Anglo-Saxon/early Anglo-Norman). Welcome!  I hope Ms. Hollick doesn't mind too much being sandwiched in between my thoughts on the writing process, Neandertals, and wolves, though!

Anne G

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

I'm tweaking the blog

I've actually been thinking about making the blog a little more attractive and readable for some time. So tonight I messed around with it for a while. I think the results are more easily read(better contrast), yet they harmonize with the template. Unfortunately, I couldn't change the background color to a prettier shade of green(or what I think is a prettier shade).  Apparently Blogger won't allow that, and unfortunately, the number of templates Blogger allows is rather limited.  That aside,I'm as satisfied with the results as I can be under the circumstances. I hope you, dear readers, are, too.

Anne G

Not much

  I haven't blogged much this month.  I haven't really had much reason to, though there have been some very interesting encounters with other bloggers on a variety of subjects related to my writing project. And I don't see any reason to blog often, unless there's a lot "out there", as, for some reason, there was in February.  I don't even have any books I want to review.  And a steady, though small, stream of people drops in from time to time and looks at my blog.  Gee. I'm even being "followed" at Twitter now! 

 

All of this is quite all right with me. I don't have a mania for posting "nonsense" like some bloggers do(there's been a lot of complaint about this in the sphere of "political" blogs, which I am not).  I'd rather post less often, if I don't have anything much to say, than simply blather. 

 

Interestingly, though, my blogging isn't the only thing that's  slow at the moment.  So is my writing. It's not that I don't have ideas, nor is it that my story isn't going well. Both are, though the story itself needs at least one more revision,before I think it will be anything close to publishable, and that's just the first book!  It's just that, unlike some writers, the words often come s-l-o-w-l-y.  I have a scene in my head, but I don't quite know how to put this scene, dialog, and characters down on paper(or more precisely, in the computer).  This is much more difficult than one might imagine, but I keep doing it, even if I only get half a page done. In my view,that's the only way I can write at all "creatively".  I'm definitely not a "formula" writer. But I'm also disciplined.  And  lately, I've been doing more critiques of other people's writing, than I started out doing.  I enjoy that, partly to see(with the more "polished" writers),what I can aim for, partly to see where they're going,and partly, just to see what they're writing!

 

Be that as it may, you, Gentle Reader, can rest assured that I will remain a "presence" here. You may not agree with some of the things in my blog, or you may love them so much that you "lust" for more. I will eventually have lots to say, I am sure.  I might even repeat myself, on occasion. But this blog will continue,and of course,I will continue to encourage people to drop by and correspond. Who knows?  Maybe someone will stroll in here and give me information about how I can write "faster".  Someone like Stephen King or J.K. Rowling?  One can always hope.

Anne G

More thoughts about this blog

It's been a little over a year since I started this blog. Okay, I said that already, in another post, which you can read here That was "anniversary musings", and it was more about Neandertals than about writing. Which brings me to the central point of this little essay.

I write a lot about Neandertals: the latest discoveries in the news and what they seem to imply, any studies I can get my hands on, and my thoughts on them, and the musings of other writers on Neandertals, where appropriate. For example, see my thoughts on a recent Robert Sawyer essay(there are links to that piece). I do this because Neandertals, and some of my ideas on them, are a central element, and implicitly embedded in my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals. Even the setting in medieval England is used, as there are mentions of places like Boxgrove.

Less frequently, I write about medieval subjects. I say, "less frequently", simply because medieval-themed material of the kind I'm interested in, doesn't get into the public venue(at least not in the US) with anything like the frequency news Neandertals does. "Neandernews" isn't all that frequent, but when it comes out, I usually get it rather quickly. I have some ideas about medieval-themed stuff, too, but it's as much to correct misimpressions that people then lived in a dark and ignorant age. They didn't, but that's another story for another time.

This dichotomy of subject matter has produced interesting results. I get a fair number of comments(yay!), but they come from two quite different groups. One group seems to be intereste in historical novels, and the other group seems to be interested in prehistoric humans. That's all fine and good, and believe me, I've had some interesting conversations with members of both groups. But there is
absolutely no crossover interest! I realize that people interested in medieval things and people interested in prehistoric things are basically two different groups, but surely I'm not the only prson in the universe, so to speak, who has interests in two divergent topics and am trying to combine them in writing or some other venue? But then again, maybe I am.

This has been an interesting revelation to me, and perhaps a litle bit saddening, but on the other hand, if I'm out there by myself, I'll start a movement. Or maybe not. In any case, I look forward to another year of blogs and comments on them, where appropriate. And regardless of interest, all are welcome to comment.
Anne G

Finally, at long last, peace and quiet!

At last, at last! I finally get to blog again. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever have time. My computer works, my printer works, and all I have to do now is get my old files tnsferred to my new ocmputer. I'm left with a pile of critiques and a chapter to upload to an online critique group, which will keep me busy for a while, but I'll stop in and keep everyone informed of my progress. Maybe I'll drop a few lines about some advice I've gotten recently, and how that meshes with my own writing experience, too. As they used to say, "the beat goes on"!
Anne G

Anniversary musings

This blog has been running for a little over a year. It started on July 27,2007 with a simple "Introduction". I thought that was the best way to start. While this blog is not yet famous, whatever that may mean in the blogosphere, a small, but steady stream of people has been visiting. I want to thank each and every one of you. You know who you are.

I am also pleased to announce that the blog Remote Central It's about my blog re the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the infamous La Chapelle aux Saintes Neandertal. You have to scroll down to July 16, where there is a piece in Four Stone Hearth #45 Thanks, Remote Central!

In the coming year, there will probably be lots more controversies about Neandertals. I will make my ideas about them known to all readers. And there will probably be lots more good books out there for me to read. I'll let everyone know about those, too. Finally, I'll likely be doing more musings about my own writing struggle --- and it is a struggle sometimes, not just for me, but for any writer. And of course, if I get really lucky, I'll letcha all know when my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals gets published. Anyone who has had sufficient interest to show up here, should be among the first to know that! Take my word for it, I'm working furiously on a rewrite of the first book, in that hope!

More thoughts on blogging

As I mentioned yesterday, the John Hawks Weblog has a long post about blogging for professiona reasons. And I've had further thoughts about this. Like Hawks, I think it's a good idea, for anybody who wants to have a "presence" somewhere that people will notice. As any reader of blogs knows well, there are lots of blogs out there. Most of them fall either into the category of opinion about current affairs or politics of all kinds, or else they're personal observations about whatever the person wants to blog about. Often, it's just personal observations about their own lives. Which is fine, I guess. Some people just need a place to rant.

I started blogging after some writers on a writer's e-mail list suggested this was a good way to begin getting a "presence" that agents or editors or publishers might notice --- eventually. They also suggested starting a website. But I'm not ready for that. Yet. I will only be ready for that when my book(s) get into something approaching publishable form. One of them may be approaching that point, but I haven't finished a complete revision yet, let alone cast around to inquire if anyone would be willing to try to sell it.

While Hawks has a somewhat different purpose from mine(he was angling for tenure at the University of Wisconsin), what I call the conceptual nature of his blog is similar to mine. Hawks is a biological anthropologist. He writes about human evolution, genetics, populations, fossil humans. Not only that, he's funny! At least, he puts humorous posts into his blogs from time to time. And, from time to time, he comments on the connection between "popular culture" and representation of prehistoric humans. One would not normally expect a "scholar" to do this. But he does. And it works, for he has been mentioned on other, similar blogs, as well as been noted some print media. He definitely has a "presence". It took a while.

I've only been blogging for about a year. I get visitors and comments from time to time, and I have a growing list of links to blogs that are relevant, one way or another, to my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece(s) With Neandertals(hint: some things I have "on the shelf" have Neandertals, but they're set in the near future, not in medieval times). So I post what seems to be a mixture of things: if I see something interesting about medieval life or medieval England, I post that. I have lots of stuff about Neandertals, obviously, since they play a very important part in my work(s). My work is fiction, but I've tried to keep up with the more recent developments re Neandertals, "modern" humans, evolution, and genetics, so that my fictional story has a bedrock of some scientific plausibilty, though the scenario is obviously "fantastic". And there are times when I just have ideas about good writing.

None of this relates directly to what I'm writing about. For one thing, I don't feel entirely ready to share. For another, I think it's more important for me at this stage, to blog my opinions about things and ideas that relate to some of these subjects. It's even more important for me right now, to explore various aspects of the writing process, either from the work of other oauthors or from the point of view of my own struggles. So sometimes I write about such subjects as how "historically accurate" can a historical novel(set in any period) actually be? This stems from discussions I've had with readers of historical fiction, some of whom demand a lot of "accuracy", and others who would rather have "just a good story". Oddly enough, this helps me in my own writing process, though not directly.

The bottom line for me is this: While I'm a writer, not a professional paleoanthropologist, I find much to admire in the Hawks blog, and have tried to structure my blog in a similar manner. The only thing I haven't done, is put in much humor. I guess I'm not "good at" humor. Or maybe I just haven't tried very hard. I don't know. But, like the Hawks blog, there is a "core" from shich subjects to blog about, spring. Most writers' blogs(and this is not a criticism) don't do this, as far as I can tell. The "promote", and they tend to write reviews. And they don't blog very often. I assume they're too busy writing, which is as it should be For myself, I'm going to try to do both ---that is, write and blog about whatever is of interest to me, in the "core" around which I've structured this blog.

Happy reading,
Anne G

I've entered the blogosphere!

I've entered the blogosphere, apparently. Because I mentioned the John Hawks Weblog yesterday, in my rather long post(for which I got a comment from another blogger), Bloglines' RSS feeder picked it up!

We writers, even those with WIP's, such as my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiecw With Neandertals, are not "publicity shy". So I, at least, consider this a humble beginning. And I look forward to more mentions from time to time!
Anne G

To blog or not to blog? That is the question

Since today is Independence Day in the US, and is being celebrated as such, I'm going to declare my own iindependence. Of thought, that is.

I was reading one of those "For Dummies/Complete Idiot's Guide to. . . " yeah, blogging, a week or so ago. Most of the stuff was things I'd alread figured out. most of those guides usually are, though some of them can be quite entertaining, for example, The Complete Idiot's Guide to British History. The part about the earliest Scottish kings was pretty funny. But I digress.

The blogging guide suggested some things that I think a blogger ought to pay heed to, if he or she expects their blog to be get attention in the blogosphere. One of them was to have strong opinions. Duh. Why blog if you don't have opinions about anything? I mean, there are blogs out there that detail every aspect of somebody's personal life, and I understand some of them fascinate people. But I think reading such a blog would be pretty boring. I mean, who wants to read something about somebody's day-to -day activities from showering and brushing their teeth in the morning to getting ready for bed at night? Unless, of course, they can connect these day-to-day activities with something more profound. What's the point?

The second thing that leaped out at me here was that the author(and don't ask me who he was), suggested that the blogger blog often. Which brings me to my own situation. He did say that it isn't necessary to blog every day, although there are many blogs that do. I've listed some that do. But the ones that blog every day tend to be news commentary of some sort, or else they're "political commentary". The kind of blog readers who read these kinds of things tend, I think, to come in two varieties: one, "news junkies" who like a lot of commentary, and two(and far rarer), certain types of reporters or trend watchers who scan these blogs to see which way whatever wind they're reporting about, is blowing. Political bloggers often turn up at political party conventions, too, and serve as reporters for what is going on. There are plenty of these kinds of bloggers and they come in all political stripes.

But what about bloggers like me, or like the innumerable "writing site" or "theme" bloggers such as the ones I've listed in my blogrolls? I think it depends. on what they're writing about. Two of the best in this category are Greg Laden's Blog and the John Hawks Weblog. Both of them blog every day, about something. Hawks in particular is getting recognition in all sorts of quarters, and I salute him. But OTOH, they are both science and anthropology writers, and they write about science-related subjects. Changes in the "science sphere" happen all the time. For me, this is important, since my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals touches on issues in science and human evolution.

OTOH, there are a bunch of writers out there, and a number of professional medievalists who also have blogs, some of which, again, are listed in one of my blogrolls. And they don't blog every day. One of the best of these is Elizabeth Chadwick's blog, Living the History. She doesn't blog all that often, but when she does, she's always telling about her travels, and their connections to the books she's writing.

Yet these too, are important links for me, since they often suggest sources of information or have information that helps me improve my own writing. But these bloggers --- the medievalists and the writers --- don't blog every day. They may not even blog all that often --- they don't really need to. Besides, if you're a writer, you may be busy writing, revising, critiquing someone else's work, or keeping up with your personal life. Sitting down at a computer and opening up a blog takes time from other things. The same is probably true for the professional medievalists.

And it's not that these people don't have opinions. They do. They have books or sites that they like, opinions about, say, the way aspects of medieval history are taught, or about the way people in general understand any history. For a writer, these are all valuable POV's, since they give some insight into the states of mind among these folks.

Of course, they cater to a far smaller audience than "political" or "science related" blogs. But even if the authors of these blogs don't blog all that often, they're still out there and waiting to be explored, for those interested.

My own situation is kind of in between these two poles, so to speak. Because of the nature of my Great Science Fiction Masterpiece(s), I basically straddle two worlds: one, I'm very familiar with, simply because anthropology was my major when I was in school. This is the archaeologh/prehistory world. I can navigate around it with ease and know some of its conventions. I'm less familiar with the worlds of the medievalists and their research, but I learn from them every day, which is why they merit a blogroll of their own here. And the writers? Well, all I can say is, if you're a writer, you never stop learning. I've found just about all the writers with whom I've communicated, to be a friendly and basically helpful lot. So even if I hadn't learned some things from them, their friendly demeanor alone would be enough for me to include them on my blogrolls.

So, as I said, my situation is kind of "in between". I may not blog every day, but I'm definitely not going to be of the "occasional" variety, either. And I have lots of opinions. Some readers who wander here may disagree, which is fine. I don't mind disagreement at all. I definitely agree with the "For Dummies"(or whatever it was) guide that any blogger should not embrace "neiutrality"! After all, my opinions are my own, not anyone else's. I will have a presence! So stick around folks. I'll stop by and blog often enough so that you should. And some of you may even find the waits between --- since I can't necessarily blog every day --- worth your while. I will certainly do my best.
Anne G

Maybe Mercury Retrograde is over?

Maybe Mercury is finally out of retrograde. One of the sites I couldn't get into is working(at least some of the time). And I'm getting Compose Mode more quickly when I log in and start to blog. Yay!
Anne G