We change a lot in one year.

This blog has been four things in the past, and it’s still kind of four things now, but at the moment it’s mostly one thing: Fantasy and Science Fiction Mostly On the Kindle Love. Of course, it wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t occasionally cover the other three things from time to time, but it’s nice to have found a focus that I’m happy with.

As a retrospective, I’ll give you the best of the best from the four periods in S∂’s first year as a blog.

Period the First: Spare Bits

The very first post in its entirety I’ll quote here:

Tap tap tap FEEDBACK ow.

Okay, it’s on.

Hey, are there better colors? Hmmm. No. That will have to change.

Hello there.

I’ve decided to try out a new Blogger blog. I’ve been toying with that idea for ages, but since Blogger has improved remarkably, particularly under Google, I feel comfortable enough to go ahead.

Say, the page settings are really neat, drag ‘n drop.

I might stay a while.

The next post for the day was a recipe for Chinese tonic soup. ((Which I need to start making again now that fall is advancing upon us)) Most of October was more than a little droll and unfocused. Which isn’t universally bad; for me, lack of focus makes it difficult to blog.

Period the Second: Novice Writing

I was, and am still, an idiot when it comes to fiction. Mind you, I am an idiot with potential. As far as I’m concerned, the only fiction writing entries in 2007–2008 that aren’t shaky are:

• the one about synopses, because I actually took a workshop to learn all that
• the one about strange ideas people having about writing, because it’s chestnuts ((Ye olde fashioned writing chestnuts that all experienced writers and editors with clue say.)) and also slightly funny
• a theory of beginnings

Everything else that isn’t, say, a writing blog recommendation or a word count declaration, should be ignored. This was sadly the rest of 2007 and the first half of 2008.

Period the Third: Meta-blogging

This overlapped with Period the Second, mostly because the article about synopses got Stumbled. I contemplated why, which got Stumbled even more. Afterwards I studied quite a bit about the medium of blogging after that, and wrote about it—blogging about blogging, or meta-blogging.

I accumulated most of my greatest hits during this period, all of which continue to bring in traffic to this day:

• 4 Principles for Packing a Punch With Unique Content
• Getting the Most Out of Entrecard ((I no longer participate, lacking the time, but it’s a nice program for beginning bloggers.))
• Looking for Love in All the Wrong Bounce Rates
• Moving From Beta Blogger, my first tight series (in 4 parts)
• HTML for Dummies, my first loose series, and sadly short; the third one has something like over 20,000 hits because of the Straight Talk About <div>

Much of the rest is a little fluffy. I might add more (these days I hack up my WordPress templates and plugins) but it’ll be technical at best, because I got quite bored with meta-blogging.

Period the Fourth: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Kindle,
and Oh By the Way Sherlock Holmes and Wodehouse

Could I be successful writing about something other than meta-blogging?

Well, yes. One fevered weekend morning, in the bath, I wrote the outline for a rather deep, perhaps manic, essay. When I got out I wrote quite a bit, and also dug into references from two canons for support. All told, 10 hours later (it’s rather longish) it was done. Then I posted it to the House, MD community LiveJournal.

A House, MD and Sherlock Holmes Special: Predicing Season Five Based On the Sherlock Holmes Canon has hit many House boards in multiple languages (including the official Fox one), blogs, journals, StumbleUpon, I think maybe even del.icio.us. Currently it’s also referenced in Wikipedia, although that’s a bit ephemeral; you never know who might wipe it out.

Questions answered in the positive.

More greatest hits today, although they are nowhere near so great as that one:

• 2008 Hugo Awards Countdown
• Thoughts on the Hugo Nominees for Best Novel
• How I Met and Married My Kindle
• A Date with the F&SF Oct/Nov All-Star Issue
• Kindle-licious on Wodehouse’s Psmith

The Future and Beyond

In another year, things will have changed again, but I think less so than in other years (I mean, I’m sure the theme will have changed by the time another revolution around the sun has been completed). I so enjoy what I’m doing now, and actually have been able to keep up the posting energy, that I’m fairly sure I’ve Found My Way. Plus my Kindle has been very supportive, and I appreciate that.

I have always loved Fantasy, and am starting to love Science Fiction. I still love Sherlock Holmes and definitely love Wodehouse. I love creating and thinking about eBooks, although I try to tone down the rabid there. I accept my love of LOLcat and PunditKitchen and that I have a life beyond the stuff I blog about. ((Just a bit.))

So: definitely more ‘o that to come. And maybe something else, depending on whether things work out (I am a pessimist; I think things won’t work out until they for-sures do, even if the probability of for-sures is about 99.99%).

Enuff Srsz Talk!

And now for a fun and apolitical word from the sometimes wonderful and always confabulous PunditKitchen: