ProetryPlace Blog 52 Back to Blog One
On May 15th last year I started my journey into the land of Blog with my first post. Here it is.
NeoBlogger Post Numero Uno
ProetryPlace. No spellchecker, it's not misspelled.
This is where I spill my guts, share my opinions, shoot off my mind about whatever may grab my attention, but mostly about writing and reading, i.e. prose and poetry. I will be gathering up samples from my writings to post here from time to time, including material from my book of poetry, Another Season Spent, published by Vabella Publishing and available there as well as Amazon in Print and Kindle versions and at Barnes and Noble.
Welcome to ProetryPlace. Please visit when you can and leave your comments. Richard
Posted by Richard Allen Anderson at 1:17 PM
Not quite one full year later, I am writing my 52nd blog for an average of 1.04 posts per week with about the same total number of words as the typical novel. The blog will have accumulated about 2500 reads with this posting, a somewhat constant 50 per week, on average. Now I am mulling the mind of my muse in directing me to this pursuit.
To call ProetryPlace a literary blog sounds a bit too pedantic, but, true to my original intentions, essentially all of what I have written here relates to language in some aspect. About a dozen of my blogs discussed language per se, seven have featured my fiction, eleven were memoir or family history, ten included samples of my poetry and/or other’s odes, sonnets, haiku, etc. and about ten more included my profoundest pronouncements about some special occasion or issue. Still another half dozen were partially or fully written but never posted.
What have I learned from my year of blogging experience? A lot.
As to motivation to write, the blog provides another way to share. At the same time, the sharing is uni-directional, because the response by way of direct comments has been very limited. This is to be expected for what is essentially a weekly column, but does not provide many clues as to my readers’ minds and preferences. I have read a few of my blogs for critique at my writers club meetings. If I can extrapolate or generalize the response there, essay-type writing was the least preferred, sharing of personal experience to emotion got the best response. Still I am reluctant to make myself the focus of this writing, but I do have plans for change.
I like buffets or, as my family referred to them in the Scandinavian way, smorgasbords. A little of this, a little of that, a selected mélange of tasty treats, rather like a good musical composition, with some major theme (fish, meat, veggies) and sides chosen for gastronomical harmony. The hazard associated with the smorgasbord is overindulgence, and the slight irritation at having to exclude some un-tasted items from one’s brimming plate. Everyday meals, of course, are much simpler—sautéed salmon and summer squash, for example. Still fulfilling, allowing one to appreciate all the nuances of taste of the select menu.
I have been writing smorgasblogs, but my intention for the future to present a more limited menu. Blog 51 was a small piece of the family history I have written sporadically over many years. I need to bring this to some fruition, hopefully as a published volume. My vision is a creative nonfiction approach to portraying the lives of my ancestors, enhanced by or supplemented with a few old photographs that initially stimulated my interest and backed by the research I have done of various “official” records as well as family correspondence.
I also need time to sift through the poems I have written in the many months since I published Another Season Spent to see if there is enough substance for a second volume of poetry. And there is the one book for children I have authored and would like to have illustrated and published. And . . . .
If I am successful in redirecting my writing efforts toward these limited objectives, I expect that the frequency of posting my blogs as well as the content will be affected. There will still be the occasional special observations or events that will force their way into my attention sufficiently for me to publish a few words, and I hope my faithful readers will still find satisfaction in visiting ProetryPlace regularly.
Until then.
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