A soft reboot (with a chewy centre)

Folks, it’s time for a bit of a change. Spring is here (along with its cursed handmaiden daylight savings), the sky in Melbourne is a perpetual battle between gloom and glare, comics companies are releasing exciting new titles and I’m starting to think that my blog sucks.

Well, okay, that’s maybe overstating things (and trolling for compliments). Better to say that I’m not super happy with my posts over the last few months, particularly the weekend ones. Too many of them are rambly, waffly things about the theory of narrative, or the subtext of reading, or the veal parmigiana of Kindle or some other thing that only makes sense to me – and maybe not even than. I look back at some recent posts and think ‘I have no idea what I was trying to get at there.’

This is what crack cocaine does to you, friends. Take it as an object lesson.

Anyhoo, I think that this blog has lost its direction – or, perhaps more accurately, that it never really had one in the first place, other than as a place for me to talk about myself and how awesome I am. And I still want to do that – believe me, I never get tired of talking about myself – but I want to be clearer on how I go about that and to write posts that are more engaging/less boring for you, my faithful audience.

So in the spirit of the New 52 (but less shithouse) and Marvel NOW! (but less exclamationy), I’m doing a bit of a reboot of this here blog. Or at the very least a change in creative approach and supporting cast.

Things I want to focus on:

• The craft of writing: More than anything else, this is the stuff I love thinking about and talking about. I’m not egotistical enough to think that there’s much I can teach anyone, but I think there’s value in putting up something practical and seeing if it resonates with people, or spurs discussion that can do the same.
• Original fiction: More flash fiction pieces and downloadable short stories. I’ve just finished a run of those, but there’ll be more by the end of the year.
• My own writing and ebooks: Like, duh. This probably goes without saying.
• My publishing experiences: Again, I’m not saying I have any special insight. But I work in publishing by day and put out my own ebooks on weekends, so I’m in the thick of this pretty much all the time, and if nothing else I can warn y’all not to make the same mistakes I do.
• Grammar and language: On the other hand, this is where I can maybe actually teach people things they didn’t know. Or at least rant about comma misuse SERIOUSLY PEOPLE THEY’RE NOT THE SAME AS SEMICOLONS DON’T JUST USE THEM LIKE SENTENCE GLUE.
• Interviews: I’ve only done a few of these, but they’ve been fun and I think I should do more.
• Cool stuff that people should know about: Links, reviews, heads-up about upcoming things… you know, stuff like that. Probably this will mostly be the fodder of midweek posts.
• Batman: Let’s face it, folks, I ain’t never gonna stop talking about Batman.

Things I don’t want to focus on… eh, I’m not gonna bother calling them out. Boring stuff. Meaningless gibberish. Lemmings. All that sorta thing.

In the end, I want this blog to be useful, interesting and entertaining, both for long-time readers (both of you) and anyone else that stumbles across it and might pony up three bucks for an ebook find value in it. And when an idea for a post doesn’t meet those criteria, or is a jumble of ideas that doesn’t have a solid core, I’m gonna put to one side while I work out something else to say.

The new era starts this Sunday! Smell the excitement!