I have on this blog more than a year's worth of pondering my life in public, through the medium of words. The blog format encourages the writing of "vignettes" -- presenting a slice of life, or launching a proposal, or uttering a prayer, or outlining an idea that has the potential for extensive development.
So what happens next?
Why do I ask such a question? A blog is becoming a kind of literary genre in itself. In the world of electronic media, this is something very strange for a person like me who has spent his lifetime dealing with print. The fact is that the writings on my blog are already "published" - sort of. Right?
This is kind of like an e-magazine, or at least it's a regular e-column. I originally started it for my friends and former students, and as a kind of "writing project" that could help my recovery. But of course, I immediately began expressing myself in a public "preachy-teachy" persona. Here is my life! Learn something from it! Alas, this is how I am. When I think things through on my own, I find that I am "teaching the air." My mind is moved by the desire to discover the truth about reality and communicate it.
I seem to think that even my spiritual incoherence can serve as a foundation for learning and teaching about God and the mystery of life.
So what happens next?
I've been involved in publishing for over thirty years. I worked on the high school newspaper back in 1980. I published my first book in 1986. I was an editor and publisher of academic journals and books, and the director of an academic press, during the 1990s. Then I managed to publish two books of my own in the past ten years, in spite of the illness and the disability and all that stuff.
I still think in terms of books.
I could collect the prayer-poems I've written here, organize them, and upload them to Amazon Kindle right now, as an e-book. I could probably have a e-book put together by next Monday.
Wow. Strange.
But no. I'm going to hold out for a "real book" - I am going to work, if possible, through my current publisher and, yes, the editors that I so desperately need.
Or, should I put together an e-book? Why not?
It's not like print publishing is making me a lot of money.
According to Blogger, there are people in Russia who are reading this blog. Really? Maybe I should just keep blogging. Or maybe all of the above.
Have you learned anything from these ruminations? (Ha!)
