Hi everyone. I’ve been doing some thinking about what I want to blog about next year. This year, I’ve posted a lot about our reading selections, and also whatever grabbed my attention or pissed me off, mostly under the category of religious rants. Next year, I want to be more focused, so here’s what I’m planning:
1) I’ll continue to write about our monthly reading selections and to point out books that might be interesting to skepchicks. I want to write more in-depth book reviews, especially in those cases where I’m not able to interview the author.
2) I’m going to post periodic accounts of my adventures writing a memoir about my transition from born-again Christian to atheist. I’ve been working on this book between everything else this year, and next year I want to give it more focused attention. I may post some short excerpts from the work-in-progress. These posts will focus on the experiences of “How I became a Skepchick.”
That’s it. I’m going to try not to let the internet suck up so much of my time in 2008. I have my doubts as to whether I’ll be successful, but I’m going to try to check my email only once or twice a day, and read blogs only once a day. I want to be less of a scatter brain next year, and have more cohesive chunks of time to spend on my writing.
What this means is that I’ll probably be writing less frequent, but more substantial posts.
That’s what I’d like to write, but I’m interested in what you would prefer to read. No promises, but I would like your input. I made a little poll to make it quick to respond. If you want to give more detailed input, use the comments.
P.S. For those who don’t pay attention to the author line, this is Donna (writerdd) speaking, not Rebecca. And this poll only applies to what I will write, not what the other contributors to Skepchick will write. See my personal blog posts for more info on my personal mission statement and my goals for 2008.
I'm all for the long, thoughtful book reviews. After a while, the snappy jabs at religion I read all around the skeptical blogoweb all start to blur together.
But hey, I'm looking forward to your book too, so if all you have time to blog about is the quick and snappy jabs, then I guess that's OK. The way I figure it, blogging works best when we contribute the things which only we ourselves could write, and your life experiences certainly sound like they're worth writing down.
Regarding "those who don’t pay attention to the author line", perhaps a picture of the author on each post next to the name would be helpful… (or if there's no picture… an avatar?)
Mikhail, good idea but I don't know if that can be done. Rebecca, do you know if this blog software supports something like that?
Avatars next to pics — that's something I'd love to have on the blog but unfortunately haven't found a way to incorporate yet. That magical day when we finally get the new site running, it'll be in there. Um, at this rate it'll be Smarch 32nd or so.
Blake, if it wasn't for people blogging, I'd probably have nowhere else to write my own comments, so even short rants are better than nothing.
I figure if I were to ever start my own blog (I was thinking Smarch 32nd as well, what a coincidence!), I'd probably not get more than a couple of short rants down every now and then either. So I won't expect anyone else to do better than me.
Blake, you hadn't seen biker-Jesus already, had you? :-)
exarch, I need to become filthy rich so I can focus on all of my writing projects and not worry about how to pay the bills. Sigh. Then I could just write whatever and whenever I wanted to.
Of course, wasting time farting around on the internet really is detrimental to having large chunks of writing time as well. But it's also sometimes very inspiring. Go figure.
Writerdd, I answered *both* to the poll (even though I can't keep up with all the book suggestions as much as I'd like to). I've enjoyed all your religious rants over the last year because they've often spurred a lot of comments of a more personal nature, which goes back to your comment to me here. Some commenters have expressed that they are going through a religious transition and meeting resistance with family members, and I think writing about your book-in-progress will continue to draw out those type of comments. People need places to discuss, relate and vent on a different level than say, Pharyngula, which I read daily, though for different reasons. Too, there aren't so many comments here that one gets swallowed up by long threads…I read all of them.
Then again, as you said, the Internet takes up lots of time, so whatever you write about is much appreciated. A prosperous 2008 to you and I look forward to your book.
BTW, I always pay attention to the author line, but then again I pay attention to who writes "email" vs. "e-mail," so that's just me. Besides, all you SkepChicks have different and recognizable writing styles.
Melusine, I'd still like to edit that book we were talking about in the comment you linked to. Thanks for reminding me about that. Damn, though, I keep overloading myself with too many projects!