Blogging and the Curse of 11-11-11

I have been getting emails and Tweets and Facebook messages (even a few Hallmark cards) asking me--indeed, beseeching me--to write another post on my blog.

It is a little surprising because there are not so many people in the world (Earth, that is) who even know this blog exists. That bespeaks volumes about the multiple reasons I had for creating this home away from house in the first place. And, with the venerable 11-11-11 time cue due to grace our lives tomorrow (11/11/11, that is), it seems completely unrelated.

Which brings me to my first point: not too much I ever write seems related to much of anything else. Especially all that I choose not to write. It seems to please some people more when I don't write. Sure, there is the occasional linguistic parsimony or the dabbling in daunting deliberations that tend to confuse and frustrate the prurient purists. However, in general, I am occasionally lucid and as engaging as a handful of sand. That may yet be my downfall. (Did I answer the question? Or shall I pose a question, then answer it? This is what I'm getting at.)

There are times when I post something about my writing, either an excerpt or a how-I-did-that discussion, or the more bewildering why-I-did-that report. Other times, I have news to share which is new (for a brief moment in time, that is), which typically has some connection to my writing, or to the writing of my friends and associates, or to the art and craft and science of fictionalization in all its many, many forms.

And still other times I seize upon the opportunity to throw down a bagful of words and arrange them--or try to arrange them--into something comprehensible and loathsomely profound. Such seems to be the case today, as I digress between preparing a lecture on analysis and interpretation for a research writing class and my own semi-serious babblings about the non-uniqueness of the 11-11-11 phenomena. (Yes, I actually did "tweet" that I was holding out for 15-15-15!)

There you have it: a post! Wasn't that easy? Wasn't that meaningful? Not really? Well, it felt good for me, at least, getting out the excess of words that had been building up. What else could I have done? Pondered the meanings of political candidates' guffaws and gaffes? The mistakes of misanthropes? Compared the passing asteroid to a summer's day? Ranted on all that riles my sensitive sensibilities? Complain about having tornadoes, hail, flooding, and earthquakes all happening around me in the same weekend (true, I'm unhappy to say)? Or something else....

Frequently there is a sense of satisfaction that, if I type long enough and use enough words, that something will make sense to someone. I have heard that a certain number of chimpanzees typing on a certain number of typewriters (obviously before the age of computers), would, in a certain number of years (given a reasonable amount of nutritional sustenance), produce the works of Shakespeare. That, certainly, is a major digression, especially when all I've sought to do today is exercise my fingers.

It is that time once again:

May you all have something better, something more enjoyable, more productive, entertaining or enlightening to do today than read this posting a second time. Doing that (the second reading) would likely label you a true fan of moi. Yet I would not embarrass anyone by repeating that label. Further explanation of such devotion shall have to wait until another empty hour in my pre-fab life unfolds unceremoniously and grins something akin to a Cheshire cat.

And so, without additional adieu, I fade....

P.S.--I wish to throw a hearty "Good Luck" to everyone who has scheduled some important event on 11-11-11, especially to fellow Fantasy Island author Danielle Raver, who will have her fantasy novel's book launch (Brother, Betrayed), and to those particular sci-fi films coming out on 11-11-11. I hope everyone has much success!