Future shock / Nothing changes.

Every now and again I come across comments on blogs who presume, not meaning to be unkind, that a blogger blogs because they have embraced the blogosphere as away of 'moving on to greater things', or advertising their potential talents or works in progress.

May be true for some, and that's cool. If you've got it, flaunt it. Heck, it's almost mandatory nowadays to define yourself as a character and promote it along with a demonstration of your skills, be that a CV or a Van Gough of a book.

I don't see blogging as any way a second hand replacement to 'real' writing.

I came into it way back as an extension of what I do, and what I've done for what feels like forever.

Another avenue to explore and learn. To me it's no different than being a street preacher (done that) technical writer (done that) giving radio interviews (done that) preacher (done that) councillor (done that) book binder (do that), book restorer (do that) cartoonist (do that) artist (do that - um, sometimes) and actor. Golly, have I done that in so many ways, or my real name's not Wheelie. Oh, wait.... :)

Nothing I do or will do be exclusive of anything else I do or have done. They are all mutually inclusive. If you blog, you are publishing.

If you don't believe me, look at the millions companies like Amazon or Apple are spending copying REAL books to be read on their electronic devices............. Chuckle!

Blogging is now 'mainstream'. My advice. If you have a desire to publish printed book, give them the net address of your blog - warts and all.

That, in my opinion is the important thing. To do what you love to do, and if one can put food in fridge along the way - hey, that's a bonus.

~~~~~

Having said that, you can't beat a book - anyone's. I have a really battered tiny King James bible I picked up many years ago for a few pence, hand noted and hand scribed in beautiful script with someone's family history from 1796. I meant to restore it.

I can't. I can't.

On a bad day, I'll sit with it, running my fingers through it's yellowed pages, carefully following the wonderful handwriting of previous caretakers. Delicate, tatty, loose paged and yellowed. I don't give a donkeys that it's a bible. I do care care about the delicate, crisp, allure of the centuries, the glance of the printed and hand annotated prose. And ye small gods, that smell. The pure joy of it.

If you want to be a published book writer, that's what you should send your mind ahead to.

As someone did, jotting down proudly the dates of births of their children in 1796.