04.29.08
The Week Before The Words
I’ve spoken at some length about Essay Week, without actually giving the skinny on what it is or what its goal is for the May session. I figure now’s a pretty good time to get it taken care of. Those of you who were around for the last EW, back in August, might consider yourselves excused, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stick around; the explanation’s a little different this time.
Well, first, to address the question on everyone’s mind: “What right does this jerk have to write these long, ridiculous diatribes and expect us to care?” Funny thing is, I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’m not particularly notable and I don’t really aspire to be; if I do become famous, I’d rather be known as a storyteller than as a commentator or discussion-master. Still, every once in a while I get these urges to try to speak my mind in what’s been called “the new marketplace of ideas”. (I’ll get into this more on Monday, when I talk about Web 2.0 and social networking.)
So, put short, Essay Week is five straight days on the blog about a handful of topics I feel the need to speak to. I come close sometimes outside of the designated Week, but usually scrap those because the topic on my mind at the moment is (nine times out of ten) fanboyism, and I’ve kinda done that one to death. The purpose of the week, when I first did it last year, was to give me some time to work through a game without having to worry about writing for the blog (recall I was working on the nonstop-posting challenge). This time it’s a little bit of an inversion– I’m writing so that I can, in essence, focus on my writing; the draft, specifically, needs some solid attention without interruption, and this coming week is an excellent way to do it. So, by prepping five long posts ahead of time, I can ensure that content stays flowing while at the same time giving myself a break.
Now, if that’s the purpose, why not simply take the week off from the blog? After all, Shutdown Day is coming– why not just stay offline and out of relative contact for the entire week? That’s more than a little impractical in this case. First off, I’m flirting with inertia enough as it stands. Recall my rules of writing– if you stop doing something long enough, eventually you stop doing it altogether. The second reason is that I do pride myself on having “something” up when I say I will. Even the excuses I’ve habitually posted, in my mind, count– it’s not that I don’t want to write for the main page. Sometimes things just come up, or sometimes there’s nothing really I want to say (or what I did say isn’t just bad, it’s whiny and annoying and you really don’t want me to post it, trust me). Finally, I did make a resolution to try to keep up a consistent set of updates, and I intend to keep that promise. (Maybe next year I’ll try daily updates on both sites…. hrm.)
So, now you know what it is, and why I’m doing it. Just to give you all a little taste, the five topics I have in mind– I’ll be writing the essays tonight and tomorrow– are as follows: “On Social Networking”, “On The Tantalizing Fringe”, “On A Lack of Organization”, “On Reinventing Oneself”, and “On Being A Programmer”. I do hope that you enjoy these topics.
One of the things I’d like, really, is to see people start discussing the topics a bit more. I always feel a little self-conscious posting all this crap up, as if I were some sort of twenty-first century Walter Cronkite telling you all The Way It Is. As much as I style myself a Forum Tyrant, I think there’s room to challenge me on a few things.
One way or another, I hope you’ll all join me in at least exploring some of the things I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while.