Yesterday was Sophie’s big sixth birthday party, which was a huge success thanks to all of Marianne’s hard work and planning, and the help of Nanny Wendy and Aunts Barbara and Bec. Now it’s all about the travelling. In less than 48 hours I’ll be enjoying the hospitality of Qantas Airways. Sydney first, where I hook up with Trevor, then on to San Francisco. It’s only a very short visit – two days – and I’ll be spending as much time as I can with my wonderful publisher Jason, before heading off to see Springsteen with Cheryl and Kevin. And on Friday I fly on to Manhattan for the beginning of the grand Aussie Processional. It really should be fun. I’m actually happy I’ve got time in Oakland on the way home. I can spend a lot of time with CHARLES, and hopefully also get to see Ellen, Karen & Bob, and the Night Shade gang.
The reason I’m mentioning this now, other than because I need to get everything planned and it’s on my mind, is that I am a lousy travel blogger. I mean to record what I do, who I see, and where I go, but I never do. I hereby do not promise to do it this time. I will try, though. I’d like to. I’m also not promising to blog about what will effectively be my holiday reading. I’ve got eighteen days that I’m not including in my official ‘reading time’, so I’m going to read whatever suits. As soon as I get home, it’s on to 2008 stuff, so I’m looking forward to some self-indulgence.
This actually touches on something which I’m trying to puzzle out. I’d like to blog a lot more about what I read. I’d like to try to use blogging as a kind of tool to keep me self-disciplined and talking about what I read. The problem is it’s public and that causes problems. Without an audience, I won’t do it. With an audience, too much can be read into a simple comment. Hmm. I have to think on it, because I want to blog the 2008 reading year, or find some way to keep a record of it that I’ll actually follow through on.
I’ve been experimenting with just that over on my blog, Jonathan. I try to be very careful about what I post…only time will tell if anyone is interested, how useful it all is, and if I can in trouble (somehow) by doing it. :-)
One of the enormous problems with commenting on stuff as you read, obviously, is that people read things into your comments. I’ve had a number of cases where I’ve mentioned starting reading a book and not mentioned it again, only to find the author is quietly checking in every now and then to see what I thought. I’ve also had people think that comments on stories or writers indicate things about book projects I’m working on, when mostly they don’t.
So what happens if you do start a book, find it a yawn and forget to ever mention it again and the writer thinks you hated it (because you did)?
I don’t know. I have had a writer come up to me months later and tell me they were waiting to find out what I thought, which was very surprising.
This goes back to the desperate egos of writing – authors want validation, especially from editors they admire. Hopefully, we’re too polite to ever trouble said editors, but we do read their blogs and emails with diligence in the hopes of securing a nuggest of praise or help. With the sheer number of quality works and writers out there, it’s nigh-impossible for all but the top tier (the Links, Fords, Barrons and so forth) to earn constant lauds, but still we search and Google ourselves.