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Blog Announcement of Epic Proportions!
Recently, an epiphany has surfaced in my caffeine addled mind. Something that could spell the end of my book review focus for eternity. Eternity is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration but I've honestly reached some conclusions in my mind. Because, for the past few months my energy has been expended by another project in my life that requires about eighty percent of my mental energy. Suffice to say, book reviewing is at odds with this personal project of mine. I cannot genuinely write book reviews with the same zeal because some uncontrollable force in me has other ideas. These ideas are of an entirely different breed of species than book reviews.
Balancing writing a lengthy series and review books is a near impossible task. The past two months of my life have centered around this novel's development. Book reviews have actually become a distraction from my work or from my focus upon researching history. Though, it might appear to be simplistic to write reviews and write a novel simultaneously. Believe me, novel writing requires far too much energy for me to write reviews as well. I cannot effectively write a novel with book review tasks meddling with my plot's development.
Basically, I've come to a decision to completely alter the purpose of this blog. Over the past several months, I've tirelessly scoured the internet in search of places to honestly discuss deep topics with civility. My internet discoveries excavated some disturbing truths about internet discussion. It seems that most internet discussion involves spite and belligerence. For these reasons, interesting discussions are stalled by interesting discussions being changed into verbal warfare.
When planning to write my only review for July, I sat down and my mind screamed in revolt. (By the way, I do plan on writing the review tomorrow due to establishing a commitment to post it.) My mind kept routing my thoughts back to my story or some theological or philosophical that it wished to resolve. I ignored my mind futilely and fought to write the review. Only,my words were becoming another piece of my story instead of the book review.
I am generally in fear of the blog sphere because I feel like I'm abandoning something which many people are expectant of. Book reviews were the prime reason for this blog's original creation. Without them, what does my blog develop into? What sort of blog will be created afterwords.
Well, my blog then becomes experimental and also becomes a dumping grounds for the many thoughts that pulse through my mind. Meaning, I'll occasionally post a generalized post about a certain topic and wait for a very active discussion to be conceived from it. Or, I'll plan to have a monthly blog read that I'll discuss in detail. But, I'll also encourage my blog followers to read the book and discuss as well. Essentially, this blog would become more interactive as result and also resemble an online book discussion group. These discussions would help with relieving some of my stress with novel writing and also allow me to have an enjoyable distraction. Book reviewing has become drudgery for me because I am sometimes required to read books that I do not particularly enjoy. Writing without ardor causes me to lose my passion for writing my novel. I need to completely committed with novel writing and cannot allow for menial tasks to leech my energy.
I'm doing this because I need something stimulating and different from the main cropping of activities on the internet. For a long time, I've been desirous of deep discussions about topics I'm intrigued by. It's been an arduous task for me personally to find discussion forums that encourage these types of discussions. Normally, I've found discussion forums to be intellectually confining due to the webmaster's legalistic beliefs. With several others, I've discovered that the members normally resort to bullying and begin forming a hierarchy on their forum of favorite individuals. I aim for this discussion blog to be divergent from these in that I would discourage elitism and promote honest,free thought. Inevitably, someone will form pacts with others and being the process of discussion deterioration. But, I hope to dissuade people from that by having my own posts take on a curious tone, not a volatile one.
In conclusion, I wish to begin August with a discussion of JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit," or perhaps some other discussion of a favorite read. Please expect these discussions to include references to philosophical ideas or the author's of allusion. Of all things, I would love for these discussions to journey outside Plato's cave. I'm encouraged by this whole idea and hopefully others will like the idea. Whether you agree or not, please leave a comment about your suggestions for the direction of my blog.
