09 April, 2017

I abandoned this blog back in 2011. Surprised to find it still sitting there, like the abandoned house in W.B. Yeats' poem:

 Before their eyes a house
That from childhood stood
Ruinous, uninhabited
Suddenly lit up from within
From the door to the top
All things remain in God

 Can I light up this house? What is the motivation for a blog? To pour your heart out to strangers in cyberspace? To promote a product?

Since I last posted, I abandoned my intention to resurrect a half-finished novel and wrote and (yes) self-published another one. It's called The Ballad of Johnny Arcane and you can find it on Amazon or most any other online bookseller. I used a pretty good local press here in Portland, just around the corner from my house (Inkwater Press). Press is not exactly an accurate word to describe the process; I don't think anything is actually pressed, like an apple or a pair of pants. Electronic technology has made it possible for just about anybody to put their creative work in front of the public, but in doing so, all the rules have changed. When I sit down with other writers and musicians and this subject comes up, we talk and talk about it and pretty much always say the same thing. No more words about this. Except that last night i was talking with a self-published poet and he said you have to refresh your blog, make it seductive, then join Twitter and start posting little seductive tweets with links to your blog. God, what a weird world I have grown old into.

 But anyhow, step 1: I revive the blog. Will I tweet? Only time will tell. Our American president is older than me and uses the medium to get himself into all kinds of trouble. OK cyber-trouble, bring it on. My day-to-day labors have little to do with whatever trouble I might be getting into in the Cloud. Go ahead, Jim. Just post it. Drop it into the Void and see what comes back at you...

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