APPARENTLY, I DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT

Bill Shakespeare didn’t have a website. Charles Dickens didn’t blog. Mark Twain wasn’t online. (Can you imagine if those guys had to maintain author websites? Connections were so slow back then that Shakespeare would never have found time to write King Lear.)

These days writers don’t have it so easy. According to international law, if you’re published, you have to have a website. (It was passed in The Hague when most of us were busy watching the final episode of American Idol, Season Two.)

So after my first book was published I built me a site. But apparently, you’re supposed to feed it, water it, burp it, change it, and actually care for it. (Author websites are protected by The Department of Social Services, and any author found guilty of neglect can be sentenced to five years writing greeting cards for Hallmark.)

So I recently returned to my woefully neglected site and started renovating. Just when I thought I was done, my publisher tells me I have to “keep it fresh.” And that means...

...blog.

Blogging, as I understand it, is a process in which I write stuff (fluff, actually), post it, and you read it, if and when you’re in the mood. If you want to comment on what I wrote, you write me back. (It’s really just an updated version of Pong.)

The challenge is what to write without embarrassing myself or my publisher. Remember, I get a year and a lot of editorial help to write a book. Blogs have to be written in twenty minutes or less. (One of the by-laws passed at The Hague.)

So let’s start with some subjects I won’t be blogging about: Religion, politics, sex (my fifth grade escapades in the Powell’s blogs don’t count), quantum mechanics (quantum anything, actually), global warming, figure skating, or goat farming (which my daughter has documented extensively, and I’m darn proud of her).

Here are some subjects I may write about: writing, mid-life crises, changing careers, dogs, dumb stuff I’ve done in my youth, dumb stuff I did just recently, research I’ve done for my books, and my favorite topic, How To Earn Millions, Lose Weight, And Develop Killer Abs Without Working, Dieting Or Exercising. Actually, I’m thinking that should be a book, so maybe I’ll hold off on just blabbing my secrets all over the Internet for free.

I’ll do my best. Just don’t expect King Lear.

Next blog: Wed. Dec 3 — The Case of the Missing Mystery Writer.

Marshall posted on December 1, 2008 10:04 AM