Tag: me

A Post You Can Scroll On By If You’re Scrolling Down My Blog’s Timeline

This is me figuring some things out.

This is one of those meta posts. Yes, I’m taking up space here to do some “out-loud” thinking about what I want to do here. Sorry! Bear with me (if you’re out there at all) and I promise next week will be better.

That’s where I want to start I guess. I’m trying to be more consistent about this thing. I mean to start posting dependably every Tuesday. This will be my fourth Tuesday in a row, so it seems like this may actually happen. It’s also true that early in this blog’s history, I did a couple of “seasons” – three-month periods where I consistently posted every Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, I had more views then and even had a couple of posts that drew a small amount of attention.

I was never very deliberate about what I posted in those days. My intent was simply to keep writing. I had just come out of an MFA program with a “Creative Nonfiction” degree and was trying to work towards… something. I know not what, at this point, but someting. In the years since, I have managed to keep writing, but not always here on this blog. You can look at my “About Diane” page and see a few things that have appeared in other publications.

But most of what I’ve done is not published, except for what’s on this checkered and not-very-directed blog, and a metric tonne of social media posting. I have a novel in the works, a novella, and I’ve just decided to self-publish a chapbook of mixed essays and fiction sometime this coming year. It has become time to devote a bit more energy to this thing and see what I can actually accomplish.

That’s the backstory. So what’s next? I think an important next step for me is to build some sort of constituency. I haven’t tried very hard to do that, but I do know it to be possible. It’s time to make some stuff happen. The question is: how?

I think this blog needs to stand on its own. I need to post consistently. I’m doing that much and will continue to. This is my first line of “offense”, if you will, and my sincere hope is to post things that will be of interest. Scrolling back through my previous posts of late, I see that I have developed a pattern: I review albums and try to contextualize my thoughts around whatever music I’m posting about with thoughts from my life and from the world as I see it. I also do much the same thing without the music; see my “Zeitgeist” posts.

What that indicates to me is that I orient towards cultural commentary. You may be surprised to find that I am still looking for indications. I chalk that up to a lack of conscious planning about what I mean to say when I come here to put down some thoughts. You could say that this is more of an observation than a deliberate choice, but I’m fine with the diagnosis.

Essentially, this is what they used to call a “perblog” or Personal Blog. For me, this will almost always be pointed outward at the world, but it will definitely come from a point of view somewhere between these two slightly-ringing ears and a little bit behind these two hazel eyes. A broadcast from my personal brain radio, if you will.

I hope you will tune in from time to time. I’ll try to make it interesting. Please like, subscribe, and if you’re feeling generous, leave a comment!

Zeitgeist 11/2023

A Time Capsule

I’ve called these thingies writing updates in the past, but I do have other stuff going on, so I’ll include some of that here as well. I’ll try not to wander too much!

State of the World. Not good, really. I think there is a LOT of cultish and ideological thinking going on about things that are essentially distractions. The war in Ukraine was a distraction as much as it was a cash cow, but this Palestine thing is So Much Better. We are draining our coffers on genocide, and in a totally contradictory way to what we were doing in Ukraine. Which doesn’t matter, because they’re distractions. Things to keep our minds occupied while they rob us blind. But the Israel one is extra cool, because it’s one of the ones where dissent from it is a big offense. People are losing their jobs over it.

Also, There were two consecutive November days that were the hottest November days on record, and the month as a whole was 2°C above pre-industrial levels! That’s supposed to be the Line That Must Not Be Crossed.

Well, we done crossed it. Go Progress, Go.

State of Massachusetts. I live in the Western part of the state now, and my connection to what’s going on in Boston is really different from what it was when I was in Watertown. Of course.

Where I live now is so bucolic, quiet, beautiful, old school, elevated, and both the same and very different from where I lived before. There are definitely Trumpers in the area, for instance. I’m friends with some Trumpers. This does not in any way freak me out, even thought I am about as far from being a Trumper as it is possible to be… But we’ve veered into the previous heading’s territory, haven’t we, so maybe we should stick to the subjet. At least those of us who are me should.

But I still have 3 major connections to the city, and I need to honor those. Lesley, Fenway, and Wicked Queer. Once a week, I drive down Route 2 into Cambridge, up Fresh Pond Parkway, to Mass Ave, and then over to Porter Square. If’n I was rich, I’d have a pied-à-terre in Belmont.

State of Mind. Weirdly OK, considering. I have a lot of rage about how things are in this world, and I think I always will, but it is really sad and distressing watching things look so much like they’re falling apart. I look at the world and wonder how anybody thinks the state of things is sustainable. But you know what? It’s OK. I’m in the place where The Coming Doom will come to last. If I can see it coming, I can make peace with it.

People on an individual are OK. On a mass level, we’re a mess. I’m kind of a mess, but I’m a mess in an exceptionally beautiful place, far from the madding crowd, and that makes a difference.

Also, I think critical thinking can help with a lot of things that people aren’t applying it to. The facts are the same for all of us. I know Marjorie Taylor Greene and Kelly Anne Conway think there is such a thing as “alternate facts,” but you know what? There kind of are. The center-left corporate media spins as much of a fake narrative as the right does, it’s just not quite as nefarious. But there are things that lib friends of mine believe that are definitely untrue.

Writing Life. Currently caught in the middle of two tasks. I’m working on a revision of the Ghost Story, and I need to be working on The Faerie Pirate Thingie. Also need to be watching movies for Wicked Queer. Eep.

Read a couple of brief sections of The Faerie Pirate Thingie at Paul Richmond‘s Word open mike over at the LAVA Center. That went OK, but for this work, I need to read for longer than a five-minute open mike slot. I’m still looking for that opportunity.

I’m working with a book coach on The Faerie Pirate Thingie, and our back and forth has been very helpful. I’m seeing the shape and size of the work before me, and.. it’s a lot, but it’s doable. I need to devote more time to it, so I may be stopping in the middle of this current draft of the Ghost Story for a bit while I address the Faerie Pirate Thingie.

I am not working with the book coach on the Ghost Story, but I am attempting to apply what I’m learning.

Current Listening. Pocupine Tree’s Signify is on the box at the moment.