First off: I like her point. I don’t like her writing, much too verbose for what she’s saying, or rather repeating over and over that reading is more important than writing, because – after all – writing will out on its own.

But see, the lady has a point. Or half of a point. Because without reading how can anybody aspire to actually write anything decent? Miller is right in emphasising:

I say “commerce” because far more money can be made out of people who want to write novels than out of people who want to read them. And an astonishing number of individuals who want to do the former will confess to never doing the latter. “People would come up to me at parties,” author Ann Bauer recently told me, “and say, ‘I’ve been thinking of writing a book. Tell me what you think of this …’ And I’d (eventually) divert the conversation by asking what they read … Now, the ‘What do you read?’ question is inevitably answered, ‘Oh, I don’t have time to read. I’m just concentrating on my writing.’”

That, I personally find shocking. While I’ve been struggling to keep up my reading pattern of at least one book a month ever since getting pregnant and juggling a full time job, I would never one minute put my writing in front of my reading. Both are symbiotic and I realised that the first time I thought ‘wow… you’d think this is Lord Byron’s soggy writing’ when reading something old of my own feather. We are fundamentally influenced by what we read and even more so immediately after we’ve read something. This influence is proportional to the length of the book or the length of the author phase that we are going through. I am sure others have witnessed this slow tendency to start writing in large, expressive sweeps after reading a Brontë novel.

While I don’t savour Ms. Miller’s venom as much as other commenters have, I do salute her drive and her message: we need to encourage people to read more.

Ask yourself, would you like to read an epic three part novel by an author that hasn’t read Shakespeare and is almost illiterate in terms of world literature and writing?

I wouldn’t.

There used to be this rite of passage that in order to write, you had to read the classics to understand the finer workings of good plot, of good character depiction etc. and namely to what my mother (and Rilke) used to call ‘form your mind’. This, of course, is an ongoing process and at the end, the things we write at the end of our lives are fundamentally different from what we write as teens. But that’s the point. Without progression, a novel can neither be good nor bad. It would just be a very boring play. Called Waiting for Godot.

Godot never came.

Hence no progression.

Makes for a bad novel. But a great play.

Without knowing these subtleties, without referencing them, we lose this fundamental and important element of human culture that makes progress even possible: mental and literary cannibalism. Without it, everything will become just an occurrence. A singular event in the minds of currently living persons. As opposed to a literary act that is realised within a set of events lined together through time and that through quotation and citation becomes a strand that makes up the fabric of human creation.

Has it already started then?
That place of the inbetween when silence replaces whatever was there first.
Commitment, companionship, proximity… love.

Once and for all?
For ever and ever?
Over longer or shoter, harder or sensible,
over time and over that space that’s already expanding,
over hearts and stone,
blood and that visceral heartbeat that is the most solitary thing,
there is a change to come.

Soon. And when it’s done.

There will be nothing left.
Of that link. Bond. Heart.

Those oathes, these vows, this ring, this finger.

There won’t be anything but this insurmountable silence,
that unbearable weight of nothing at all.
When nothing’s wrong, and nothing needs to be shared.

Just another day in paradise.

I was awarded my first ever blog award which I find completely humbling. I do live a rather isolated life on this blog an and a lot of the feedback that I get, is not published in the comments, simply because the authors prefer to send them to me over twitter, plurk or Facebook instead of using the already slightly outdated ‘Comment’ function directly under the post.

So, I was really surprised this afternoon when in my inbox I found a comment that was entitled: I’ve awarded you a blog award.
To be entirely honest, I thought it was a spam at first until I read from who it was of course. This was no spam, but a small lovely blog love sent to me by Inge. Thank you very much Inge for the award. You’re a star!

This award seems to be organised in form of an avalanche across the internet and even if normally I do not support anything that even remotely smells of chain mailing, I will make an exception with this one.

Here are the rules:
1. The winners can add the logo to their blogs.
2. Add a link on your blog to the one awarding you.
3. Sent the Award to at least seven other bloggers who stand out because of content, themes and designs.
4. Put the links of these sites on your own blog.
5. Leave a comment on their site.

And here are my favourite seven:

1. Hunk of Junk: Joel – my husband’s blog on the various things life hold in store for him or rather he for the world. A must read on it: his quotes of the month collection. He copied the idea from me, but, dear, oh, dear, he’s made an art out of it!
   
2. The World according to Taquoriaan: Inge’s blog on everything that she goes through or makes. Loved it from the start and always a pleasant read. Particularly her considerations on green living and cooking.
3. Will Wheaton in Exile: Don’t remember the name? Really not? And when I say: Wesley Crusher? Aah, see. Knew it. Well, on his side of the world, Will has been busy becoming a splendid writer that has brough more than one tear of both categories into my eyes. His blog is the collection of his change in life as an child star to isolated geek programmer and eventually freeing his poetical soul and father within. A touching story and if you check it out: worth every second you spend in his archive to get the whole story.
   
4. The Happiness Project: Gretchen Rubin’s blog that started when she was writing a book with the same name. She explores the small things in life that might cast a small smile on your face and the ones around you. Quotes, projects and musings. What’s not to love?
   
5. Solvitur Ambulando: Greg’s fairly new blog that good me immediately hooked onto his life story and the retelling of the various stages a man goes through when finding his place between faith, family, work and adoption.
   
6. nBlog: Nike’s blog. She’s a nymph, a medieval storyteller, a mother, a photography and photoshop artist and so much more. The blog is in German and English and worth every second spent on it.
7. Mark Johnson’s Blog: My friend and collegue’s personal non-thomistic blog And even though he’s not as active on it as others, ever post brings a small thought where it’s needed.
8. Amorphismen: Manfred G.’s – my oldest moderator buddy – first try at a blog (he ended up using Livejournal. *sigh*) and I am so glad he made the jump. His insight and openings on art and German literature, religious studies is fresh and ever time a small surprise is hidden in a new post.

When do we really dare to know, dare to care?
There is a silent whisper whenever the clouds separate themselves,

torn apart by insensitive finger of windy heights,
blown to the extremes of this world,

a whisper that prolonged and minded, speaks of eternity.

With words that no language can bear nor hold,
a symphony of continuous harmony,
creating ever on, like the waves that continue to roll

one after the other, into and onto this land,
into my heart and your eyes.

It seems that I am not the only one having these issues at the moment. Reading Wil’s thoughts on the matter struck a cord in me. I have been feeling like that a lot lately. And I mean: a lot.
Not only does it affect my writing or my blogging. It also affects my work and all the things I should do throughout the day (and night). It’s not something I am entirely unfamiliar with, since it has happened to me before. And while Wil is trying to just write something to get over what I call the pause phase, what I need to get out of such a mode is inspiration.

I strongly believe that such a thing like writers block as a simple blockade does not exist. I find the concept appalling. I cannot believe in any writers block to just dissipate to get me going again. A writers block is nothing else than your mind telling you: I need time to think. Or: I need another piece of the puzzle to finish the thought. And like with any other problem that can be solved in dreaming or sleeping, by letting our subconscious take care of it, most slowdowns like this can be solved in the same way: take your mind off it. Find some other inspiration. Get passionate about something. Read something else, something new. Watch a new movie. Or have a good discussion with someone around you.

And then…

Sleep. Dream. And then start writing again.

Thanks Wil, for proving me right within the hour.

Other than that I don’t have much news. I read wilweathonDOTnet this morning and the meta-blogging is back to main-topic status. Seems that he went to msnbc for a coverage on celebrity blogging and was highly disappointed. What did he expect? I mean really. It’s not as if msnbc had a reputation for the ‘real story’ behind the media hype, no?
Anyway, Will reveals one basic truth about blogging (together with his friend Shane Nickerson): “I keep my blog because I want to write the way you do” Club. I am glad that ‘Salon’ picked him as a good example on how to blog as a celebrity, because his style and his writing are so close to reality that you have no trouble imagining him to be your next door neighbour instead of a famous writer and well known actor. (For those of you who are not experienced enough of the culture of the 90ies: he used to be one of the prodigies on ‘Star Trek: the Next Generation. But if you are in fact into this fandom, please, please spare me the discussion about the uniforms for outside missions and why they’re not matching each other according to rank or something…). Back to Will: His entries come straight from the heart and he doesn’t care if some of it appears to be either odd or silly. As a reader you never feel manipulated or manouvered which you easily feel with other blogs (also celebrity ones). So if you need a cheer up, you can be sure Will has something in store for you.

I’m coming back to Salon.com’s feature of celebrity blogs just for a second. As usual the piece is absolutely worth the read and it’s hilarious. But it starts with one of my most hated ideas about blogging: “For the people who write them, blogs are a means of self-expression first and foremost, but they also reinforce an individual’s sense of being part of a community. Even more important, they’re a rudimentary form of validation: I’m being read, therefore I am.”
I am cursed by the same recurring questions, right? I would certainly agree strongly with the first part of this assertation, but certainly not with the second part. (Btw: the ‘for those people’ at the beginning of this sentance makes it to the top list of my ‘things absolutely not to say if you don’t want to loose the reader). As someone who has spent a lot of time in the theories about personal identity, personality, individuality and all those terrific (sic!) ideas about the human self, I _know_ that a lot of your definition of the self depends on the object stance society takes towards us (thus making us an object, hence ‘object-stance’). But does that really compell me to be conscious about it all the time? Do I need to be read to keep on existing? I’ll cut this short now: no. The blog exists wether it is read or not. In fact I could keep a blog without ever reading back my own entries and not communicating the link to anybody. Does that mean that the Blog is dead? Unexisting? Unreal?

Let’s have a look at the French way of anwering this question. On the other side of the world there’s an event that calls itself: La fête de l’Internet (or Party of the Internet) and it’s funded by the French governement and the various offices of cultural advancements. That says it all, no? No? Really not?
Well, here’s what it’s about: creating links throughout the internet and celebrating its marvels. My first thought is that the best celebration is to use the internet accordingly instead of making a huge venture out of it. Nevermind.
On the frontpage another blogging apostle is ranting about THE experience. You don’t really get a name to go with that article and the web page of this ‘internet party’ is highly annoying to me. So they link to the initial page that this silly article was published on: here. (Proceed to this link at your own risk and please close your mouth before you continue to read… Thanks.) What the person says is basically this: blogging was a phenomenon until everybody decided to join in and now it’s a drag. But there will come the ‘cyber purge’ (aka the great metaphysical deluge sent from the ever watchful gods of the internet) and only the worthy blogs will survive. Only the good ones. The ones that deserve to survive.

Well. I don’t think I need to comment on that in any way. Everybody knows by now that I resent the normative judgements applied to the internet or its ways of expression. If you don’t by now: read the bloody banner on top of the page and START BLOGGING!

Anyway… I am still trying to update my story, but hell, all this time in between has washed all sorts of plot bunnies to my doorstep. They’re all lining up here and asking me to sidestep my plotting again. What am I gonna do? Make them leave? Take them in?
If I am going with what I have in mind right now, some people are sooooo going to hate me. But since I already was called an ‘evil, evil person’ by a reviewer (for almost killing Lancelot… I could never, but well, the reviewer didn’t know that it really can’t get any worse.

Apart from the already moribund candidates for a killing I think I will have to bring back some amount of action to this story or else… well, let’s be honest: there is only so much Arthur brooding you can take before the whole general angst theme wears thin and you lose the compassion of the reader. I’ve lost a lot of momentum with this new chapter, mainly because I tried to figure out the next three chapters instead of simply writing out the next logical step.
But I’m sure I’ll get to an ending one way or another.

Too many Saxons, to many knights on the verge of death and no logical timing… I’m with the back up against the wall and that’s the problem with a story you publish chapter by chapter I guess. You can’t go back and write a door into the wall as Bernard Cornwell once advised in a foreword to Sharpe’s Sword. And by the way: yes, the door was crucial to the story… saved Sharpe from being really dead instead of just dying, AND it gave him the chance to be saved by his best friend and a mute nun… *ggg* Don’t worry. There will be no nuns in this story, but maybe I can find the door…

So… we’re back on the meta level of the blog – seems to be the topic of the week I guess. I’ll try to tackle it from another side this time.
Why not write a blog? Because there is nothing interesting to write about? Because nobody is going to read it anyway? Why not use the the traditional way of email or a phone call? (Yes, he asked me that.)
The ‘nobody is reading this’ fallacy or lie: I have addressed this in various entries of my old blog and some entries I didn’t publish in here. First, I think it’s a typical internet excuse… or has anybody who holds a conventional diary ever asked that question? I guess not. Apart from that, I think it’s a nice cosy constructed writing situation. Constructed because there is a vast number of bloggers out there that actually voice this as an attempt to get commentaries, trackbacks and feedback. Now I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing to do, as long as it’s the expression of a real feeling. Everything else is just manipulation. However you – and I am addressing YOU here, yes, you that you’re sitting with your coffee in front of the screen and have nothing better to do than read this – might answer this question for yourself in your own blogging experience, I think it’s something we automatically address when writing, thus it’s a fallacy. People are vain – and I am no exception – and in order to even write anything you will have to face this issue and get over this fallacy. Because if you really believe in it, then why are you writing yourself? See where I am going here?
Email vs. Blog: Well, my answer is simple really and twofold. [Holy C*** My mother just sent me her first email!!!! Don't laugh, we all started out small one day...] For one I don’t see why I should write one of those silly ‘massed round emails’ depicting my status here in Paris, preferably sent out once a month. I hate getting those and would hate to inflict this on others. Kant’s categorical imperative at work here *smile*
Secondly, in a blog I don’t need to hold back or think about what to include, what better not to mention (in fear of getting worried phone calls telling me to seek out a counsellor) etc. I can jump on every idea and thought my ever so weird mind sends me. It’s simple really. You just put it in the blog and people get to decide when or whether they’re going to read it or not. That way the experience of ‘catching up with me’ is a lot moor casual than a phone call or an email where you’re quickly on the ‘After Action Report N° 24454 regarding my attempt at getting a reader’s card at the library’ level. I somehow can make myself believe that this here is less vain than all the other options.
Why not to write a blog: Like my crusade for the non-categorisation of blogging showed this week, I am quite idealistic about a lot of things and I guess my answer follows the line ‘be whatever you want to be’ closely. What is appealing to me is the ‘don’t hold back’ factor of a blog. The articulation of a simple ‘take it or leave it’ stance that I don’t really get to live out during my days.

So… why not to write a blog:
… if expressing your feelings and thoughts seems like a calvaire to you.
… if you prefer doing your laundry to reading.
… if you’re uncomfortable with introspection.
… if you think that post-modernism is right and that all important things have already been said by others before you.
… if you think that the internet is a subcultural articulation of our social difficulties to bond.
… if for you the internet is but a means to achieve a goal
… if you don’t want people to see how many typos you’re able to fit into ONE phrase.
… if you’re a solipsist.

Sorry, about the last one, I couldn’t resist. I am sure this list will get expanded over time as it seems that I am terribly redundant in my thoughts and that people keep asking me the same questions about blogging over and over again… maybe I should consider writing up some FAQ like some of my ‘beloved’ internet rulers. Mean, mean, mean…

Hell, what do I care what the REAL definition for a blog is? The difference between a LiveJournal and a weblog… Whether the Hypers think it’s a blog or an essay… Each blogger has to decide about that.

But let’s hear how another of those wise men tries to define what the ‘blogger community’ is all about… hold on to your seats: it is a subculture. There. Now I know…
“A subculture has sprung up around blogging. Groups of people maintain blogs and cite each other in their blogs. They even visit each other.”

I need a doctor to remove the constant blinking of my eyes here. I am part of a subculture… so after the ‘Ivory Tower’ and the removed ‘attic’ of the philosopher, the ‘are you crazy?’ tag for the Medievalist, ‘you are just sad’ tag for the poet, now I can add ‘subculturally deficient’ to my collection.

Oh, here‘s another very nice way to put it:

“In case you are new to the genre, Weblogs take two canonical forms…”

- don’t I just looooove the use of the present tense as an assertation and the word ‘canonical’ here -

“…links-and-commentary: A Weblogger surfs the Web and links to items of interest. One may provide a bare, unadorned link, a link plus an excerpt, or both of those plus one’s own pithy commentary.
Diary or journal : One keeps a regular or irregular journal online. It is quite possible to combine the forms: You can write about your life, which itself includes the Web-surfing you do.”

Ok, so I am actually allowed to do ALL that… isn’t there some regulation act nr. 87243 from the ‘WRTI’ (aka ‘We rule the internet’) Board that says personal thought and comments are not to be uttered unless you want to pass as a troll? Or was that the another part of the XXX.XXX paratax G on Godwin’s Law? I can’t remember…

Never mind Joe Clark manages to hit the ball even further: You cannot understand Weblogs without understanding the nature of the Web. Items posted to Web sites are meant to be read. There are clear exceptions – company intranets, password-protected sites, subscriber-only areas – but the entire point of publishing online is to allow others to read and experience your work. The Weblog format engages a quasi-dialogue in which the blogger posts a link to and likely comments on a public Web posting elsewhere. The source can and very often does counterblog in return, and indeed it is possible for a handful of Weblogs to do nothing but read to and write to each other in public for days on end.

Glad that we’ve settled that. So to understand a blog I not only need a diploma in ‘The Nature of the Internet’ of the ‘UoCIU’ (aka ‘University of Correct Internet Use’, regulated by the WRTI-Board of course), but I need to have a look in the Mirror of Narcissus and be absolutely adamant that people read my texts. What if I don’t? What if I sometimes do, but sometimes don’t?
And could someone explain to me – silly philosopher that I am – what a quasi-dialogue is? Someone seems to have had an overdose on Heidegger here and it surely was not me…

So this is where the professional instinct kicks in and over voices the sarcasm.
It is a common place that the human mind functions in categories, that the very foundations of our thinking are realised in basic settings of categorisation, qualification and judgement. Our society on the other hand – a body made up by minds that function like this – is mostly constructed on the acknowledgement or refutation of these categories. And then there are things that cannot fitted into any category or setting such as art, poetry or hobbies. Have I lost you here? Well. Have you ever been asked the question why you are either spending long nights on a sonnet or what it ‘offers’ you or even if that’s worth doing? No fixed category could take up my writing as ‘being worth’ to be done or your reenacting as having a value other than celebrating History.
And what about the internet? The internet can be a lot of things… a realisation of RL or the contrast of that etc. But differently from society: it is not governed by anyone or anything. Of course there are parts that are governed by the people who pay for the webspace etc. and sure the technical aspect does in a certain way ‘govern’ the internet.
But why should we be so ready as to accept any categories in the way we behave on the internet? Why would we allow anybody to tell us how we should write or what we’re not allowed to say in whichever context?
There are two classes of people in real life: sheep and wolves. 99% of the people around you are sheep. 1% are wolves. If you’re a sheep you find comfort in the categories and the way how others, society or ‘life’ [oi!] decides over you. If you are a wolf you rebel and try to change that. Then again it depends on the situation what you will be…
When it comes to writing I am a wolf. And wolves recognise each other… So any sheep who try to tell me that a) this is not a blog, but an illusion or a quasi-dialogue and b) that the internet IS what it is, should close their little gates very carefully tonight. The wolf is on the move… grrrr.