Like a Weblog But Different

Obviously, I like the idea of weblogs or I wouldn't be maintaining one, now would I? I've seen some neat blogs--the weblog kept by a grade school teacher so parents could keep track of what was going on in the classroom and blogs kept by travelers so families and friends could find out about what they were doing come to mind. But, to be honest, a lot of blogs end up being rants that just go on and on and on and on...Oh. Sort of like this one, you say?

Anyway, I was visiting the website of Ayelet Waldman, a writer I've become acquainted with through Readerville (See April 2 entry). Instead of a weblog, she keeps a book log. The entries are annotated, but the annotations are short and to the point.

I think this is a fantastic idea. For everybody. Lots of kids and teenagers keep weblogs or on-line journals (which are supposed to be different--I'll talk about them another day) that they expect to share with their friends. Well, why not share what you're reading, too? What you read expresses something about you. Share your interests with your friends.

Families who maintain websites, teachers who maintain sites for their classrooms--
everybody ought to add a book log.

Except for me. Because I'm already keeping this thing, which, as we all know, I'm barely able to maintain on a regular basis.

Suddenly, A Neil Gaiman Fan

Some of you may recall that I was not very fond of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Who am I kidding? Of course, you don't recall that. So check out my September 9 entry. However, I read Gaiman's American Gods this summer and liked it so much I went on to read Good Omens which he cowrote with Terry Pratchett. And I liked that so much that I would have bought a third book if I didn't have so many other things I need to read.

Good Omens would make a good book for teenage readers, especially kids who've had years of religion classes of one sort or another and would recognize religious references. It's been described as a funny book about Armeggedon, but you could also say it's a hopeful book about Armeggedon.

Bingeing

Hi. My name is Gail, and I'm a binge writer. Actually, I am now doing everything in binges. I try to get onto some kind of work/life schedule, but in order to finish book length manuscripts I have to binge, meaning I have to ignore everything else except keeping food on the table and some clean clothes somewhere in the house in order to finish the job. Then when the writing binge is over, I binge on life things. For instance, I have manic cooking episodes. And this past week I've been binging on staining lawn furniture and ironing, two things I had to neglect while I was binging on the book manuscript I sent to my editor last week.

I mention all this to explain, once again, why I haven't been maintaining my blog. I don't want to give the thing up, because I enjoy spouting off. So now I will go on an organizational binge and try to stay on track with Original Content. For a while.