So, did you have a nice November? Mine was good.
I've been feeling a lot of internal pressure to make this blog into my own little home publishing station, and the strain of creating essays for arbitrary deadlines has caused me to shut it down entirely for a time. (I hope you really liked the Veith critique, since you got to read it for a month.) But in the last few weeks, a variety of larger writing opportunities have opened up -- for one thing, I'm penning for Pulse, Chattanooga's newest, best culture alt-zine, which you can find on newstands today at hipster hangouts like Lupi's, Greyfriars and Mojo Burrito. Other literary projects are still in the works, but I'll keep you updated on where you can find the most "serious" Mesh scribblings. Meanwhile, I plan to use this blog as something of a writer's desk: working through preliminary thoughts about essays I'm publishing, posting links to other writers I've enjoyed, and engaging in the occassional life story that interests only me.
So to reiterate: For my most structured, lengthy writing, go brave the pot smoke waifting from the Taco Mac kitchen and get a copy of Pulse. This space is going casual Friday for the forseeable future. I hope it's still entertaining.
That said, here's a tight little piece from Salon on the origins of the Inklings, that fine society of British writers led by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. (A DayPass will be required to read it. Takes two minutes to get. No big deal.) The essay talks about how the men started out as the Coalbiters, a group of mythology afficinados who gathered at a pub every week to read epics in the original Old Norse, (Good times!) and how Tolkien helped bring Lewis to Christ. Most of the information here will be familiar to Lewis and Tolkien fans, but there are some lovely tidbits, such as the unimpressed reaction of some Inklings to "The Lord of the Rings": "Henry Victor Dyson, for one, was known to snarl, 'Oh fuck, not another elf!' as Tolkien read another section of the epic in his usual rapid-fire mumble."
Posted by mesh at December 3, 2003 11:15 AM | TrackBackFantastic about the gig writing for Pulse, Mesh. Is this more or less the city version of the Village Voice that is so common in various cities these days? Here in Athens, that free weekly hipster "Village Voice" alternative is called the Flagpole. But in Knoxville, it was the Metro Pulse. Is that basically what you're writing for?
Posted by: scott cunningham at December 3, 2003 05:23 PMYou know, with you going public and beginning to work in a more legitimate journalistic setting than a weblog offers (Josiah will kill me for saying that), maybe it is time to reconsider what the purpose of your blog should be. I'm assuming that you only have so many of these articles in your mind floating around at any given time, and since you now have to produce for the weekly, it's probably going to affect how much you should produce for your blog. I remember that when I was working at my old job, the degree to which I would blog hurt my production at work - not merely because I was blogging on the clock, but rather, because I only have so much creativity in me on a given day. And if I use it to mainly in my blog format, then I have less of it to give to my work-related projects. The same might go for your blog writing.
That's why I think there's an advantage to keeping the blog light. If it's light, then you can deviate to deeper stuff when you feel like it, but you don't have so high of expectations on your production.
William Stafford, the poet, wrote a poem a day his entire life. He died in his 80s and left behind over a dozen volumes of excellent poetry. One interviewer once asked him what he did when he got writer's block. His answer was, "I lower my expectations." That's one way to make your blog more valuable. I think the kind of writing you do for a blog is really important, because it is somewhat public, somewhat journalistic, but is flexible enough to allow you to experiment with the type of writing you want to do. As such, it's good, at the very least, for helping prepare you to write for other settings - even if it's doing so only in the sense that it's keeping you writing.
Just some thoughts. I'm mainly trying to figure out a plan to get you to post more.
Posted by: scott cunningham at December 4, 2003 07:45 AMI agree completely, Scott. My new "writer's desk" manifesto is basically a long-winded justification for writing whatever the hell I feel like writing, no matter how short and/or stupid. (I promise to continue writing in complete sentences, however.)
And yes, Pulse is the new Village Voice-lite hipster 'zine of Chattanooga. It's still small, but it has tremendous potential. I'm excited.
Posted by: mesh at December 4, 2003 10:42 AMI excited for you and me on both accounts...the blog and the magazine.
I missed you. It was as if a part of you had died. Perhaps a little melodramatic but I really felt that way.
Would be nice if you sent us a Pulse.
Posted by: Barbara Mesh at December 5, 2003 11:36 PM