I used to think that blogging was an inferior form of writing. These days I’m not so sure. Now I think it’s like a plastic cock flying through a room of reporters. Or something. I love the picture and I had to use it.
Anyways, blogging is not inferior because . . .
I have no idea how many people have read my published short stories but I suspect it’s very few. I do know that I can count the people who’ve read my novels on my fingers. No toes. The Grumpy Owl on the other hand –ahem– gets about five hundred hits a day. That’s not too bad. I don’t even whore the thing.
If the purpose of writing is communication, it’s pretty obvious which is working better.
Although I’m still writing novels, I’ve completely stopped writing short stories. Fact is, I always hated writing them. I don’t even like to read the things. I mainly wrote short stories to try to them — hoping that they would lead to a novel being published. It was a bit odd.
I like writing books. I don’t really care about people reading them.
Communication is not the purpose of my novels. I write them because I’m trying to figure something out. I have a question or a situation and I just want to explore it — not necessarily even answer it. I try to build something logical on an interesting foundation. I would like to be paid for doing this but everyone wants to be paid for their mania. And this is definitely my mania.
I’m obsessed with taking a patently incorrect or far-fetched premise and watching a logical structure emerge from it. I love methodical insanity. This is why I’m so into suits, Nazis or the Catholic Church. Once you accept their premises, everything they do or say after, no matter how repugnant, might be correct when viewed through the proper lens. This intrigues me. Always has, always will.
Even our own society is insane. We’re based on money. Think about that. We trade pieces of paper for things and other pieces of paper. It’s like building a whole civilization on baseball cards. Then we walk around and act like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
It’s all so absurd. I can’t really believe in anything. How do you even test a premise?
I test with novels. So they’re sort of like science fiction. But they’re not really story-telling or world-building, though there are aspects of that. They’re a laboratory where I construct a system of lies on top of an imaginary premise. Science fiction is often a thought experiment. But it often becomes a sort of propaganda because the authors have a goal or position.
I don’t. I try not to. This is difficult.
Generally, I’m just exploring. Turning over logs and looking at the grubs. I tell a story just to see the impact on individual characters. They bring things into focus. Ideally, my work is amoral. And I don’t care about the comfort of the reader because no one reads it anyway. So it can be repugnant. Even to myself.
Blogging cannot perform this function.
It does perform the role of short stories. Both from an artistic and a commercial point of view. Like I said, people read this shit, let me into places because of it and sometimes even send me things. When I have something quick to say — some single point to make about something– I can happily dispense of dramatizing it. I can just say it. Or link to someone who did.
I can just fly that big plastic cock into any room.
And because this is a filter over reality, there is an element of the lie. Characterization is important. I am Ryan Oakley but I’m also The Grumpy Owl. There isn’t that much difference between the two. But, like in a comic book, one is cast in sharper colors. We do, however, wear the same costume.
It’s a nice costume.
4 comments
Ajeesh
May 27, 2008 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5)
So what other platforms can we use other than Blogging?
i write a bit, but not good enough to publish it
So what can be done for better views/reads?
Ajeesh
May 27, 2008 at 5:21 pm (UTC -5)
man, i think i also need some other tips after readin ur tragic flaw post
as to how a blog helped u with that
Ryan Oakley
May 28, 2008 at 2:12 am (UTC -5)
As for other platforms, I don’t know. You can use anything. You don’t need anyone’s permission to write something.
And when you blog, you are publishing your writing.
As for getting more views, I don’t know. People mainly come to me and I mainly mind my own business. I used to submit links to places like Boing Boing and Disinformation. Not sure how much it helped in the long run.
I’d say for every few hundred viewers, you’re lucky to get one who comes back and I probably get about one comment for every thousand views. So you need a lot of people to look.
For better reads, I just try to make it personal but universal. No one cares about your life unless they can relate to it or get a laugh at your expense. Even then, they don’t care.
They’re just killing time at work. Or procrastinating.
Ajeesh
May 29, 2008 at 9:53 pm (UTC -5)
whats the url for Disinformation?