Reaching my caturation point

February 24, 2013 jkkblog 2 Comments

I’m caturated.

On a fundamental level, I like cats. That is not to say I find their depredations cute, want to pamper them, feel like carrying on conversations with them, or need to bomb your Facebook wall with cat pictures. No, it’s more basic. If the cat comes over to me, I’ll try to pet it, unless it tries to hurt me. If the cat ignores me, I’ll ignore it. If the cat accepts petting, I’ll keep it up. If it tries to harm me, I’ll brush it away. If it wants to play a game of entice-and-ignore, I’ll ignore the whole thing. But if the cat wants a normal relationship, in which it comes over for attention and leaves when it’s tired of attention, we’re harmonic.

It’s the cat people who are caturating me. I’m not talking about people who simply have cats. Like I said, I like cats. I’m talking about worlds where the cats occupy the top of the pyramid of priority, fascination and goodness, with human beings ranking as serfs lacking the right to object. Ever. We rank somewhere below field mice on this pyramid, since a field mouse is at least a fun cat toy.

Specifically: I don’t get the masochism. Cat threw up on your pizza? So cuuuuuuuuuute! Cat destroyed your mom’s wedding dress? Look at the kitty! Cat just hanging around doing nothing? Carry on a conversation with it, preferably using baby talk! Cat just walked through the litter box and across your kitchen counter? Isn’t this just the cutest thing, she’s ready for her hourly caviar treat! Cat just found a way to slash your femoral artery as punishment for a slight delay in giving attention, and you’re bleeding out? Ohhhh, woookada wittwe snwookums! Cat laid down on your couch? Post to Facebook immediately–the world must see this cat, for it is laying on a couch, which no cat has ever done in this exact posture, and which is utterly fascinating! Cat walks across dinner table while eating? Well, what are you waiting for? Duh! Give Precious access to your plate! Cat shed fine white hairs all over the $500 navy blue business suit you just bought? Isn’t this wonderful! Just got up at 1 AM to pee, and stepped right in a slimy hairball, falling and breaking your femur? Naughty kitty–while I am in rehab, I will adopt three more to keep me company!

Now, I do not dislike anyone for this. Truly. I try just to look past it, or tune it out, and mostly to shut up about it. If people think all this is fun and fascinating, then they do, and I don’t have to understand. I just have to accept it, but in turn, I need to sidestep as much of it as I gracefully can.

The job of authors is to give voice to that which other people are feeling, but have not yet themselves found the words to express. With that, I propose some additions to the English lexicon, which is already more bloated than a ten-day-dead herd of water buffalo in a tropical summer:

To caturate: to saturate with cat details. “Cousin Winifred hates cats. She is evil, and we want her to go stay in a motel. Let us caturate her until she leaves.”

Caturation: variant of above, an overload of cat details. “I just hid two more people from my news feed due to reaching my caturation point.”

Caturbation: reveling in cat information, pics, hair, hair balls, litter clumps, videos, destruction, whims, genital self-licking, piles of puke, fickleness, and all matters catastic: otherwise unbearable or boring–but because they are associated with a cat, more wonderful than a bases-clearing double, a grilled salmon filet or the sudden news that a terminally ill child has somehow recovered and is now cancer-free.

Catastrophe: any slight thwarting or denial of a cat’s every whim. Considered animal abuse, and grounds for reporting to the authorities. Also can apply to a situation where no cat pictures or worship have been posted for two hours or more.

Catankerity: feline fickleness. “Fluffy is catankerous today. I wanted to pet her, and she tried to rip out my corneas. Isn’t she wonderful?”

Catotage: feline sabotage of everything you love. “Snwookums just bit through my DSL patch cable! Naughty Snwookums–I will rush out and get a wireless router, so that nothing will impede my posting of fifty new cat pictures!”

Catchet: the fundamental awesomeness, cachet if you will, of Permanent Cat Serfdom. “Aunt Edna has great catchet. She prepares a special grilled chicken chunk to her cat’s exact tastes every two hours, night and day. I’ll never equal her.”

Cateteria: dining area in which cats are pampered with special treats. No kibbles allowed, unless of course the cat demands them.

Catculation: the feline’s careful analysis of what he or she can get away with. Which, of course, is all actions, since all actions by cats are fundamentally acceptable, moral, cute and delightful. However, the cat does not always realize this, or it would not waste time catculating.

Catlendar: the pampering schedule. Rigorously enforced. Failure to pamper on schedule is borderline animal abuse, and can make you an outcatst from the Cat Worship Club.

Catvary: the metaphorical hill with the crosses, where cat owners suffer and bleed for the greater cause of catpture. (cat rapture). Normally, the living room.

Cateo: a cat’s cameo appearance to be photographed and posted on as many social networks as possible. Keep a camera in your pocket at all times, and your iDoodad handy–the moment is fleeting, and the world must know.

Catera: the photography device dedicated to the cat, and to him/her alone. Must never be used for any other, lesser purpose, lest it lose its holiness and become a measly, mundane camera.

Catdidate: potential cat for adoption into your Cat Worship Congregation (family). All cats not owned by anyone else fall into this category, since one can never have too many cats. Duh.

Catonese: type of Chinese food prepared specially for the cat. Naturally, each cat requires a different dish. (Cat owner eats Top Ramen.)

Caticle: liturgical hymn sung in praise of cat behavior. Twice daily is the norm.

Catharsis: the process when one has not shared cat details with the world for such a time (fifteen minutes is normal) that they simply explode forth unbidden onto social media, kind of like in that alien movie where the thing emerges from her abdomen, or like Pat Buchanan ‘joining’ the Reform Party.

Catillary: small blood vessel broken several times daily when the cat responds to the owner’s love and care by making him or her bleed a little.

Catressing: the compulsive petting of a cat at all times. Even while asleep, if you’re really good.

Catilage: the tissue in your knee which you tore trying to avoid a cat which suddenly appeared right under your feet. Expendable; small price to pay for Total Cat Adoration.

Catanova: a horny tomcat. Not allowed, since all cats must be spayed or neutered, even though you would think that Complete Cat Worship would mean letting them keep their organs. Yet another contradiction.

Catechism: list of rules for humans sharing space with (i.e. fawning upon and serving with humility) one or more cats. Recite at least daily.

Cathedral: house of Cat Worship. All spaces in the house are sacred this way, just as the yard is consecrated ground.

Never let it be said I was ungenerous to cat lovers! (A special thank you to Ms. Diane Anderson, who inadvertently inspired me to write this all down, having no idea at the time that such might occur. But who, being a literary professional of the first water, will completely understand how that went.)

Book reviews, Editing/writing life

Current non-read: The Land of the Painful Shame

February 19, 2013 jkkblog 4 Comments

Okay, the real title is The Land of Painted Caves by Jean M. Auel. I am going to link you straight to the reviews, just so that I’ll never stand accused of encouraging anyone to buy this.

Like many of you, I loved Clan of the Cave Bear. For its flaws, it presented prehistoric people as…people. Good, bad and somewhere in between. It painted credible cultures based upon significant archaeological research. It took some liberties with SoD (that’s a cool kids’ acronym I learned at a Radcon panel about Suspension of Disbelief), but none so grotesque as to detract from a fun story. Over the years, it turned into Cro-Magnoporn, getting progressively worse. Lots of tasting her ‘tangy salt’ (I always wondered if Jondalar actually brought a primitive herbal salt shaker to his oral sex sessions) and homing in on her ‘nodule.’ (Anyone ever heard a woman scream for some hot nodule attention?) Nodules and prehistoric condiments aside, it was never this bad.

One might also consider what it means for me to write this. I may be only the bathroom attendant in the writers’ club (‘here’s your towel, sir…ah, very generous, sir, thank you kindly’), but my badge at least gets me in the servants’ entrance. Consider, please: what if I were to one day meet Jean Auel, whose latest book I’m impaling with one of Ayla’s atlatls? I once came close to that painful experience, sitting in a panel where one of the panelists seemed familiar. Finally remembered that, on Amazon, I’d given her book meh out of five stars. Squirm, squirm, squirm. No one, therefore, can imagine me fundamentally eager to alienate Ms. Auel without good reason; that would be insane. If I thought I could do the book justice with kindness and tact, I would.

Can’t. This is just bad. It’s so bad, I don’t think it’s Jean Auel. I could not force myself past page 73.

It is mostly tell rather than show, one of the most amateurish bugaboos that editors have to beat out of writers. We get paragraphs of “Ayla felt….” No, no, no. Don’t tell me “Ayla felt…”! Don’t! Show me how she feels and what’s on her mind through her actions, her dialogue, others’ reactions to her. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care if you establish that when Ayla is nervous, she has a bad habit of inserting a finger up each nostril. “She eased two fingers into her nostrils” beats “Ayla felt nervous” every time.

Then there’s the dullness problem. Now, I grant that if you love herbalism and scenes about making tea, this might not be so dull. If you like long rehashes of past events, maybe it’s not that dull. And I recognize that after waiting ten years between books, some backstory is needed because we’ve forgotten some of it (or perhaps never read those books, never slurped on their tangy salt). We don’t need this much. The dialogue is wordy and uninspiring, with everyone spelling out everything, leaving nothing for the reader to infer/discover. It often feels like expository or technical writing.

There, that’s the big problem. It doesn’t feel like fiction. It feels like expository writing. It sometimes feels like a software manual. I can take some guesses as to what might have happened:

Guess #1: Auel, being contractually shackled to the publisher for X number of books, was required to write another one before she could be manumitted. No one said it had to be a good book, and she realized full well that her name guaranteed a certain number of sales, thus automatic profit, and that’s why the publisher insisted on it. That’s what publishers do with big names: once it’s clear that the Name guarantees a profitable release, they get it locked in for a series of books. You owe us one more, bucko, or you can retire, but you can’t write anything else until we get it. So she phoned it in, getting it over with, and trying her best to make sure they wouldn’t want any more.

Guess #2: she somehow ran out of money and had to do something. I find that highly unlikely, as Auel has made enough money on the series to buy me and sell me into slavery, but folk have written books for stranger reasons.

Guess #3: she got real offended by all the readers who threw tomatoes at her Cro-Magnoporn, and decided to torture them. (Laurell K. Hamilton seems to be doing it. You no likey my porn? Okay, you get twice as much, that’ll learn ya.)

Guess #4: she forgot how to write good fiction. Kind of hard to imagine, because we don’t really start going backwards until our minds start to turn to muesli, and even then, usually that shows up in other ways. Very rarely does a capable writer suddenly revert to second-year college English student.

Guess #5: it got farmed out to ‘lancers. I am sure that’s what happened with Herbert and Anderson’s latest Dune monsterpiece and it wouldn’t surprise me if several other big names/franchises were also doing it. A lot of stuff gets hired out to freelancers. We work cheap, and a lot of us make real livings as tech writers, which makes our writing sound like vacuum cleaner manuals. It is not inconceivable that they just paid someone, or someones, several grand (no royalties, bucko) to write this. I suspect this because the writing is too amateurish to reconcile with what we know Auel is capable of. Well, maybe it ain’t her at all. I can just see it: “Look, you owe us another book. You don’t want to write it. Fine, so don’t write most of it. Write the parts you like, sketch a storyline, and we’ll hire some literary mercenaries for flat fees. We’ll sign them to NDAs that will allow us and you to confiscate their duodenums if they talk. Win/win/win. Oh, sure, the readers will be hosed, but they have no taste anyway.”

You don’t think the publishing industry would do that? If so, you do not know them. Some publishers would not, and those I respect. Some would, faster than you can say ‘slurp her nodule.’ Never underestimate what someone will do for a guaranteed income stream.

I can’t say with certainty what happened here. All that is mere speculation. What I can say is that 73 pages left me wanting less. Life is too short to finish this book, but it’s not too short to warn others away. The kindest, tactfulest, mercifulest thing I can say is that I don’t think Jean Auel really wrote this.

Gods, I hope not.

Adventures, Editing/writing life

Radcon 2013: Sunday and after-action

February 17, 2013 jkkblog 2 Comments

Radcon is a science fiction convention held in Tri-Cities, WA.

Wouldn’t you know that the only day I get decent sleep is the day when I need the energy the least. There was one panel that was important to me, and I was on time, but it was about half bust. Some panelists just boggle my mind with their not-getting-it. If the panel is about how to write, the minute you say ‘Have you seen Suchandsuch movie?’ you have lost me, because the point is that you have tools available in film that you do not have in print. What is worse: then talk for five minutes about how the movie did it. That’s simply not helpful to the writer or editor, unless the panel is about screenplays and making movies.

I did pick up something for Deb and some books for Jenn, so that was productive. Sunday at Radcon is usually pretty lax, with a lot of goodbyes and such. Some years I don’t even show up for Sunday.

Overall I think that the all-volunteer organizing bunch at Radcon does a pretty good job. Some of the vendors are fairly lousy at business, and it shows, but the only ones that hurts are themselves. The panel subjects have gotten fairly stale, there was a lot of ‘they have that every year.’ But I’m firm that I’d never go back with a mobility impairment, nor encourage anyone else with one to go. Security simply makes zero effort (that I could see) to keep kids from running people over. I realize that they have a hard job, and I think what they want to say but dare not is this: “Look. The day belongs to the adults, the night belongs to the kids, so just go home at night, if you would please.” Which is convenient for them, but isn’t what I came for.

There are several panel ideas I could suggest to freshen up the lineup, but I don’t think they’d be very receptive, since I’m not part of the old line Tri-Cities Radcon in-crowd and am not a big name, so I just elect not to make a nuisance of myself with ideas and suggestions. It is probably my last one anyway, for other reasons. There are a lot of people involved that I’ll miss, as the people really are the highlight, but a lot of the actual con content is fairly much the same from year to year, and I assume that’s how the majority prefers it, so, fair enough. Overall it was a good if physically painful experience, where all my guests seem to have had a good time and enjoyed the con and each other. That really is the main overriding thing.

Adventures, Editing/writing life, Married life

Radcon 2013: Saturday

February 17, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

Radcon is the annual science fiction convention of Tri-Cities, WA.

Naturally, we stayed up until four last night being raucous. Naturally, I knocked back half a quart of tequila and woke up with a headache after less than five hours’ sleep. Had some special commitments before and at Radcon that made it somewhat necessary to get moving before one was thoroughly ready, but all was handled in good order without screwing up.

Tell you this: Radcon’s vendors should love up on me. I think my friends have dropped $1000 on the dealer room–and happy to do it. Nyssa and Jeff’s leather goods and clothes are some of the best going, as are Jane and Elizabeth’s at Seams Like Magick. Rebekah went in her medieval stuff complete to the gray cape with the elegant chicken guts on the sleeves, hand-sewn. Marcel’s self-designed and created musketeer costume could buckle the swashes of the Radcon women any day if Jenn weren’t along and equally imposing in her Victorian black silk dress. As before, I was the spud without a costume, except for the white beret.

Made it to a couple of panels, which were pretty good, and caught up with Sharon for a good long catching of up. John did the filk/jam stuff again, toting his violin around all day, and Rebekah reprised her normal role as force of nature. I got to unwind a bit at Bottles & Shots (room party) with the friendly and kind Joe and Adrienne, and met some very nice folks there. This is composed during some upstairs raucosity back at my place (they don’t need my help to be raucous; it comes naturally). Deb has been a saint of taxiing, cooking, prepping, cleaning up and otherwise making everyone feel not just welcome but comfortable and cared for. I totally married the right woman–not because she does such things, but because she wants to. It’s great to see everyone getting along and forming their own relationships independent of the hosts, which is how it should go.

Didn’t get run over by any kids tonight, perhaps because someone said something, and perhaps because this time I was going to brace and take advantage of being built like a bridge abutment. Radcon staff seems to do pretty well in most ways, always remembering its all-volunteer nature. I still have to say, though, that it just is a difficult con for a mobility impairment.

There is no way I am getting soused tonight. None of my guests are–they bring the merriment as easily cold sober as drunk, and none are big drinkers anyway.

Adventures, Editing/writing life

Radcon 2013: Friday

February 16, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

Not a very eventful Friday; only went to one panel and no parties. I think everyone had a good time, though. Panel on steampunk was quite good, with no monopolizers and pretty good panelists. It feels very weird to experience Radcon at 50-55º F; I am used to it being ball-lifting cold. Registration looked at first like it might be a return to the goat rodeo days, but they adjusted well. Some rooms have actually been moved from the past; art room is where the dealer room always was. The panel variety is fine, though there are a lot of repeats from every year. I guess there are subjects they simply always must cover.

I had not realized how much mobility impairment affects the Radcon experience. Frankly, I would not advise anyone with a mobility impairment to attend, period, ever. Too many very young people simply plowing heedlessly into anyone using a cane or whatever, and security is disinterested in the situation. And I’m one of the lucky ones, substantial enough not to be easily bowled over. If you are mobility impaired and you would feel comfortable walking through a busy skate park, definitely attend Radcon, and just accept being slammed into by stupid kids.

The greatest fun, of course, is seeing all those people one just does not often see.

Now I want tequila and my recliner.

Adventures, Married life

Radcon 2013: pre-function

February 15, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

Naturally, having this also be V-Day was not the normal way. I have an amazing wife who is willing to put herself on call for two whole days just to make sure people get to and from Radcon (see previous posts) with an ice cold sober driver at the wheel. As I write this, though a filter of straight tequila, I have to say that it was only just that she got to tie one on tonight. And she did, Alaskan that she is.

It was actually a very musical evening around our place, once we got all our rabbits in the net. Jenn and Marcel made it in from Canada without much border trouble over Marcel’s swashbuckling sword (evidently the US border guards took it inside and played with it). John, whose plane was on time, is a master of the stringed instrument and Mattias is a capable mixer, guitarist and singer. After Deb’s delicious lasagna (later punctuated by Jenn’s amazing huckleberry pie and cheesecake…good lord), we marshaled in the living room for animated discussion, song and instrumentals. I’m not much of a singer at all, nor much of anything musically, but a rendition of a Kingston Trio Spanish-themed tune had folks listening quietly and applauding (not something my voice usually obtains). Through it all I marveled again that the people who had traveled the least to arrive here were Canadian. Much song, no dance, few dogs (Leo found our sound frightening and hid from the obvious apocalypse) and great people. This is why we do this.

Eagerly awaiting Rebekah (late Friday night), and a meetup with Sharon (a room-lighter, like all the women of this group). Mattias is the only Radcon noob, so I’ll handle the orientation part. We expect to check in with Joe and Adrienne’s bash Friday night, and with any luck I won’t have to crawl to Deb’s car on a bad knee.

Maybe this is how you do Radcon right if you’re the home team: start two days early. It will be rather miraculous if I’m able to post coherently tomorrow night.

Adventures, Editing/writing life

Radcon 2013: pre-prefunction

February 13, 2013 jkkblog 4 Comments

It’s going to be an interesting time this year. For whatever reason, people like staying with us, and we will have many, nearly all from abroad: Mattias from Sweden, Jenn and Marcel from Canada, and my bro John from Andros Island, Bahamas. The token U.S. resident is Rebekah, from Idaho.

For those of you who do not have the faintest idea what I mean by Radcon, it is the annual science fiction convention in Pasco, WA. It is small compared to some bigger-city cons, but very large for the size of our area. SF cons consist mainly of vendors (selling you stuff related to SF), entertainment (the fire dancers are always a big hit, but there are other dancers, live music, and suchlike), gaming (which I never do but a lot of people do all weekend), and panels. I’ve been a panelist at SpoCon (Spokane), but Radcon made plenty clear to me some years back that I was too small potatoes as an author for them to want any panel help from me, so I stopped asking or offering. (SpoCon keeps asking me back, and I’m considering it, because they’re so pleasant and persistent about it.) However, there are various industry guests in attendance, including guests of honor in various categories, and it is good to see familiar faces and sometimes meet famous ones. Anyway, Radcon starts at noon on Friday and closes up at 4 PM on Sunday, and in between, is host to some of the most creative and amusing costuming one can imagone.

This multi-guest situation means a lot of pre-planning and arranging, more than usual because this will probably be our last Radcon; we anticipate living in another state by the time next February rolls around, and Deb starts over there in a week and a half, so we are shuffling around all that needs to occur there while also planning for a houseload of folks. Matti is the only Radrookie in the gang. We are very excited about it all.

Matters are complicated a bit by a serious knee issue I’m experiencing, which will be made better thanks to the wondrous Sharon, who arranged for a disabled permit. I qualify on several fronts but, as with my achilles surgery, don’t plan to use it except when I definitely need it as much as the next person. Frankly, this Radcon is going to involve a whole lot of physical discomfort, but I will just bear up as best I can. No costuming for me this year; navigating around will be challenging enough as it is.

Matti should be here any time now, Jenn and Marcel sometime tomorrow (lock up your milk, Tri-Cities grocers; they come for you), John at airport in afternoon tomorrow, and Rebekah on the night shift Friday. It will be remarkable if anyone’s sober enough to answer the door Friday night when she arrives, but someone will at least crawl to it and aim her at the refreshments.

One thing is sure: this is quite a crew. John is the homesteading type at heart, a former submariner who has no comment, and a natural genius on any stringed instrument. Jenn is the plant whisperer, knowledgeable about all fauna. Point to a plant, she can tell you everything about it. Marcel is a Yukoner, as nice as he is big, a good soul and strong like a bull. Matti is tall and funny (sometimes in a facepalming way), speaks excellent British English and loves to play with accents. Rebekah, well, in the first place she’s strong as hell, and in the second, she’s ultimately self-reliant. I usually describe it that when most people want a bow, they go to Sportsman’s Warehouse. When Rebekah wants a bow, she starts looking for a yew tree.

Should be a fun weekend, and hopefully I will sober up enough to blog some of it.

Editing/writing life, Married life

History lessons with my wife

February 7, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

So, I was mostly minding my business tonight while Deb watched Grey’s Anatomy. During a commercial, I looked up from my read of a book on the decline of the Ottoman Empire to read her a passage which I thought said a lot about Napoleon’s ability to influence peoples (though I was in fact a bit wrong about that). She said, in her outside voice as is traditional, “You don’t know history at all!”

“I don’t?”

“No. If you did, you would know that his last name was not really Bonaparte…”–I grew kind of excited–“…but Bone Together. ‘Bonaparte’ was an attempt by him to draw people away from him so he could have sex with the enemy’s women. That’s why he won the war!”

“Seriously?”

“Come at me, big daddy. Ask me anything. Bring it.”

“Okay, very well. What is the significance of Çatalhöyük?”

She fixed me with a gaze of shock and dismay. “You don’t know what Saddle Who You was? Listen and learn. When they wanted to build the Trojan Horse, they needed a saddle that could hold a lot of people. So they made one, and named it Saddle Who You, which is derived from Saddle Hookah. This enabled them to deliver rubbers.”

I looked at her and just laughed. “Rubbers?”

“Duh. Why do you think it was called the Trojan Horse?” I sat silent, like any good husband slow in the uptake. “See? You don’t know your history. Ask me anything else.”

“Fine. Who did Charles “The Hammer” Martel defeat at Poitiers?”

She looked aghast that I could be so clueless. “Charles Martel defeated Le Peu Nailé, which of course means ‘the nail.'” I cracked up again, couldn’t help it. “Keep it coming. Ask me anything.”

“Okay, dear. What was the significance of Charlotte Corday?”

A sigh. “Charlotte Corduroy, you mean. She invented pants, but they were corduroy pants. They were also called ‘whisper pants,’ and the idea was to give them to the enemy so they would whisper when they walked.”

“Really.”

“Absolutely. I’m really sad for anyone like you, with a degree in history, to be so un-knowledgeable.”

“I think you meant ‘ignorant,’ dear.”

“NO! I said ‘un-knowledgeable’ and I meant ‘un-knowledgeable!’ Now come on. Ask me another. I can see I have a lot to teach you.”

“Fine. Please name one of the Spanish explorers of North America.”

She thought for a minute, consulting her stores of learning. “Well, his name was Julio El De Massmainebostainia. There are some states named after him. He came with his wife Maria, their daughter Nina, and some pinto beans.”

At that point, there was nothing for it but to come put it on the blog.

Editing/writing life

Old posts…and self-honesty about motives

February 6, 2013 jkkblog 4 Comments

There’s an interesting phenomenon that happens to the blog, and it may be useful to bloggers who want to grow their readership. It is ‘body of work.’

If you write about a variety of topics, and do it long enough, your old posts become part of the Accumulated Mass of ‘Knowledge.’ Sure hope you knew what you were talking about, because it has become information people will now use. If they like it and your style, they might subscribe/follow; if they have some strong reaction, they may drop a comment.

For example, some time back I wrote about Gary Thomas Rowe, who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s at the behest of the FBI. Turns out it’s not so easy to learn much about Tommy Rowe without buying one of the two books that discuss him in depth, so I turn up on searches. I wrote about a really clumsy union protest here in town, and now and then someone will still find it on a search. (WordPress provides me data about page views and the search strings that got people here.) The more offbeat the topic, the less is out there about it, and the likelier your take is to appear. If you’re going to game the system, might as well play to win.

Anyway, if you think long term, you can see the strategy easily enough. I’ve got a couple hundred-odd posts now, some of them of interest to almost no one, sprayed across the topical spectrum, and the result is a passive generator of public interest that requires zero activity on my part. (Except for dumping the spam bin, which WP makes pretty easy.) Information may not be the reason one blogs, and this is fine, but I’m learning that information will get you attention. That, I think, most bloggers would like, even the ones on the “I don’t give a damn if people read it, I don’t care what anyone thinks, bray bray bray” trip. Oh, yes, you do. If you didn’t, it’d be a personal diary on your machine. Instead you post it where you can never quite call it back. On some level, you want to be read.

It also helps if you can write, I think, but I know some fairly popular blogs put out by crappy writers, so it isn’t just your literary chops. It also has to do with knowing something–and sharing what you know. I think it’s fun.

The Editorial Maverick

Current non-read: The Land of the Painful Shame

Radcon 2013: Sunday and after-action

Radcon 2013: Saturday

Radcon 2013: Friday

Radcon 2013: pre-function

Radcon 2013: pre-prefunction

History lessons with my wife

Old posts…and self-honesty about motives

Blogging freelance editing, writing, and life in general. You can also Like my Facebook page for more frequent updates: J.K. Kelley, Editor.