Why do I avoid blogging?
Well it’s not that I avoid it, but I guess more that I’m not very good at it yet/ that I’m scared of it/ and I’m so busy doing other work that it fails as a priority to me.
Moreover, I never liked the idea of blogging. Its something I think is more suited to those people that have to say every little thought that pops into their heads. I have always thought of bloggers as being mindless blabber mouths who clog up their lives, houses, pantries, cyberspaces with pictures of their everyday meals, thoughts about what they might do after breakfast and lists of their most hated condiments.
They are the people with collections of bread tags and bottle tops in boxes under their beds. Blogging is for people with no real insight and too much noise rambling through their heads. People who think ‘quiet’ is having the TV turned down low.
As a sound editor I know that the world is never quiet. As long as there are ears to hear and a medium through which vibrations can move then there will always be noise. Out in a quiet field there are the birds, the crickets, the wind, the distant traffic, the planes that cross the sky every 3.5 minutes. There is the deep unknown hum of something mechanical that you cant identify, but are not at all bothered by because deep miscellaneous hums and mechanical interference is just a part of the life we have grown accustomed to here on Earth.
So why did I start a blog then? Simply because someone said that it is expected that authors blog. And they are right. Authors do blog and some of them say great things.
I think the idea that authors should blog has to do with the need to constantly compete with the entire planet to have fresh cyber-trash for the search engines to find us. So that every day, there is a chance that someone will click on our little pages and say;
“Oooo I like that, let me commit my love to it by subscribing.”
The truth is, I haven’t been ready to blog properly. I am so unused to having my opinions reviewed by strangers or friends for that matter. I hate even changing my facebook status.
I mean really. All I have done so far is complain about things or think I should drink more coffee. (I’m drinking coffee right now actually, big surprise!)
Yet, I must get better at this blogging. Maybe if it wasn’t called blogging, I’d be more interested. A Blog sounds like some monster from an old horror film.
Well, it is what it is.
So, here it goes, here I am trying harder.
Look at me go.
To begin with I think I have to admit that I did this because I’m writing a book and that I don’t want this to be just a hobby, I want it to sell. I have to take it as serious as any other job I do. So that in mind I can consider that now I must think of myself as an author.
My first book, Wandering Stars, though unpublished is near completion. I have done so a number of draft, but it feels more like one draft that has never really ended.
Why sci-fi? It’s not a real sci-fi. Sure there are sci-fi elements, like how it is set in space and most of the characters are aliens.
Hahaha.
However, I never meant it to be a classical sci-fi, like in the model of the Prometheus myth where man pushes science too far and is destroyed by his own creation – the Frankenstein effect. I think when it comes to classifying this work, my book reads more like a traditional fantasy with two heroes setting out on a quest. So, is it science and sword then? Like Edgar Rice Burrows princess of Mars epics? Possibly.
I think I want to give to young readers a sci-fi that did what Star Wars or Star Trek did for our generation. Simply that it inspired a new generation to take an interest in space and science. I believe that we need a resurgence of interest in space exploration and I want to do that in a way that is both informative as well as emotionally engaging.
So, my blogging is now going to be more about journaling my books progress and less about ranting, hopefully.
GO
Shell Child – Author 