why I blog

I’ve been neglecting this blog – with a great many writing projects all coming due, and other blogs that I contribute to clamoring more loudly, I’ve simply had no time – but Kerrie pointed me to this meme, started at State of Denmark (not a Scandinavian crime fiction reference, well unless you count all those murders in Hamlet) and it seems a chance to catch up and reflect a bit. Besides, it reminds me of the why I teach meme (inspired by the brilliant Dr. Crazy’s Why I Teach Literature) which was a nice chance for a lot of people to step back and reflect.

1.  How long have you been blogging?

Since before I started using proper blog software. I created a blog-like page for my library’s website years ago. The html was criminally bad. It’s much easier now to share information with the community. In fact, I’m reminded that a student showed me Blogger many years ago; he’s now a seasoned faculty member at another academic library. He’s still teaching me things.

2.  Why did you start blogging?

The first foray was to replace an irregular library newsletter with a nimbler, more responsive means of providing information (and avoiding the huge headache of layout and creating content for a newsletter that was, frankly, one newsletter too many for most of its potential audience). Later I started  my personal blog for a similar reason: to replace another static web page that was tricky to update, one containing book reviews. THEN LibraryThing came along, so I started posting most of my reviews there, except for ones that I write for Mystery Scene and Reviewing the Evidence, so the blog morphed, as they do. (I had to look this up, because I couldn’t actually remember why I started my blog.)

3.  What have you found to be the benefits of blogging?

Since using it for quick easily-illustrated news from the library, I started blogging for ACRLog and began my own blog, then went slightly blog-mad. I now use blogs for all of my courses, very occasionally contribute to Free Exchange on Campus, try to contribute to a blog I started for students interested in the field of librarianship, and am using a blog to supplement a  faculty development program on my campus. Oh, and I have a fairly active Scandinavian Crime Fiction blog, a way of updating a website on the topic that was a summer research project last year.  My own blog has evolved into a place where I can integrate the various strands of my life – librarian, academic, novelist, citizen. Another thing about blogging: since discovering FriendFeed I am finding it a wonderfully communal activity. (They also have a kicking widget that I just added to my professional CV. It so much less busy and frantic than most widgets.)

4.  How many times a week do you post an entry?

In my various blogs, probably two or three times.

5.  How many different blogs do you read on a regular basis?

Probably 20 or so daily. Maybe more. I know, it’s an addiction.

6.  Do you comment on other people’s blogs?

Just try and stop me.

7.  Do you keep track of how many visitors you have?  Is so, are you satisfied with your numbers?

No, I try not to pay attention. At my personal blog I’m mainly working things out that are bugging me. I’m not doing it for marketing purposes. The conflation of self-reflection and self-fashioning-as-self-promotion is one thing that I find both fascinating and disturbing abut blogs. Just because we can count visitors doesn’t mean we should. It’s a bit like equating your real social capital by how many “friends” you have at Facebook.

8.  Do you ever regret a post that you wrote?

Not so far.

9.  Do you think your audience has a true sense of who you are based on your blog?

Usually as a writer, I’m very concerned about audience, but in my personal blog, I mostly say what’s on my mind, for me as much as for anyone else. It’s a space for me to nibble away at things that I’m thinking about. That probably does give people a good idea of who I am – someone with strong political beliefs, a visceral aversion to mingling marketing with identity, a person who loves books and reading and is curious about the publishing world, a librarian with an anarchist streak – but I’m not doing it to tell the world who I am. I’m just putzing around.

10.  Do you blog under your real name?

Yes.  And under my real self, as well.

11.  Are there topics that you would never blog about?

I doubt I’d ever say anything personal about my family. If they have things they want to share with the world, that’s their option, but it’s not something I feel is my option. (This is why I would never write a memoir – too intrusive into the lives of people close to me. Also incredibly boring.) I also don’t blog about how to write or my path to publication or how to market books. There are plenty of other people who blog about that, and I have really nothing useful to say. My path to publication was sheer luck; I don’t really get marketing, and I’ve never taken a course on how to write fiction and wouldn’t presume that I know anything useful about it.

12.  What is the theme/topic of your blog?

My personal blog is, for me, a place to work out things that I’m thinking about. There’s something about the medium that is nicely informal and immediate, which is a change from the more academic or polished writing that I do elsewhere. I like the bracing logic of an academic argument, and I like writing fiction in someone else’s first person voice, but blogging is like having a conversation with a friend.

13.  Do you have more than one blog?  If so, why?

Mine are all for different purposes. Students seem to like the course blogs, at least being able to find the readings and syllabus in one place and not having to find that packet of paper handed out on the first day – and it’s kind of  neat way to create an open course. That’s why mine are licensed under Creative Commons. Sharing is good.

being genre-ous

Declan Burke, whose latest book The Big O is being released right about now in the US (we’re so often the last kids on the block to read the best things coming out of Europe, though at least this time the US publisher didn’t decide to change the title) recently hosted the Carnival of the Criminal Minds at his blog, Crime Always Pays. Rather than provide the usual feast of links – something that’s hard to top after Brian Lindenmuth hosted the Carnival – he raised a serious question.

Do blogs have a particular role to play in fostering thoughtful critical discussion of a genre that has been typically neglected by mainstream media? Can we do better than the handful of short plot recaps that stand for book reviews in a book review market that is contracting daily? Can bloggers bring out the best in the genre? He thinks we can.

I believe heart and soul that crime / mystery fiction needs and deserves the kind of widespread, top-to-bottom critical work that would in turn inspire the writers to strive towards ever-higher standards of work.

The genre has not only been neglected by traditional channels, it’s often reviewed by people who are ignorant of the genre, who are shocked, shocked to find good writing. You know this is the case when a reviewer is gobsmacked by a book that “transcends the genre” because it’s well-constructed, has fully-developed characters, and is well-written – in other words, it’s a good work of crime fiction, like a great many books published in this genre. It’s only if you’re assuming James Patterson represents the genre that it’s being transcended. Dec goes on to say -

here’s the thing – crime / mystery fiction is the most popular genre on the planet, it is inarguably the most relevant and important fiction out there, and that’s why I believe it deserves more . . . It deserves the kind of dynamic, rigorous, extensive and constantly evolving critical work that the interweb is perfectly placed to provide, and it deserves to be critiqued, justified and praised not by the kind of commentator who will suggest that a particular novel has (koff) ‘transcended the genre’, but by those who understand that good crime / mystery fiction is simultaneously scourge and balm, panacea and drug, a fiction for the world we live in that is also its truth.

Wow.

It’s interesting that a number of traditional venues for book criticism are cutting their coverage and trying to make up for it by taking to the web. I’m not sure what that means, other than that they think they can save money on both newsprint and staff. The Monreal Gazette is the latest to shrink their coverage and call it an improvement.

It’s also interesting how defensive people get when a mainstream critic says a book is more than a mystery. Yes, it’s tiresome to hear people who haven’t read much in the genre say something has transcended it – how would you know if you haven’t read much of it? – but Janet Maslin saying Dennis Lehane’s newest book is a big step beyond his crime fiction is not to say his other books are dreck that only idiots would read. She seemed to me to be saying his 700-page epic is ambitious in ways his other books were not. Quite often any perceived critique of the genre is met by bristling anger and assertions that literary fiction is navel-gazing plotless crap that nobody wants to read, anyway. And that’s just as silly as declaring all genre fiction mediocre.

We have the means to celebrate the best in a genre, and we certainly have the motive, as Dec stated it above – it matters to us. Those of us who know the genre best need to give it our best critical shot. I’d say that the critical lens that Dec has turned on Irish crime fiction in his blog posts at The Rap Sheet this week are a fine example.

Or take a look at Material Witness. It’s one of several blogs that, when it comes to traditional book reviewing, easily . . . er, dare I say it? . . . transcend the genre.

why bloggers are boycotting AP

How convenient it is. Want to quote a news item in your blog? Just sign up here to pay per word.

I thought AP was a cooperative that encouraged the sharing of news among news organziations. Turns out its job is to rewrite copyright law. I thought this was benighted when I first heard about it. But it’s even sillier than I thought. Here’s a snip from their license agreement:

In consideration of the rights granted to You under this Agreement, You agree to pay the Licensing Fees specified in the order form. You hereby authorize Publisher and/or its authorized agent to collect the fees due from You under this Agreement by invoice or by debiting such fee to Your credit card entered on the Order Form. You warrant that You are the rightful owner of the credit card and are authorized to use such credit card. You further warrant that You are at least 18 years old.

My take: If You adhere to This Contract, You are a gullible Fool.

Parody is also no longer fair use. Nor can you offer any criticism.

You shall not use the Content in any manner or context that will be in any way derogatory to the author, the publication from which the Content came, or any person connected with the creation of the Content or depicted in the Content. You agree not to use the Content in any manner or context that will be in any way derogatory to or damaging to the reputation of Publisher, its licensors, or any person connected with the creation of the Content or referenced in the Content.

Apparently all uses of anything digital are licensed, not a matter of copyright. And I’ve probably violated a license by sharing this.

Hat tip to Ann Bartow at Sivacracy.

block (that) quote

It was bound to happen. The New York Times reports that AP is beginning to bristle at bloggers who quote from their news stories. They have asked the Drudge Retort (a left-leaning response to the Drudge Report) to remove some of its posts that quote from 39 – 79 words from news stories. They would prefer a paraphrase and a link. According to an AP spokesman, even their headlines are “creative content” that “has value.” Oops. I should have paraphrased that.

As a blog reader, I’m not taken with this idea. Yes to links, by all means – I want to see the original – but yes to direct quotes, too. The value of a news story isn’t diminished when it’s quoted (not paraphrased) and I don’t think it hurts a newspaper’s bottom line to have its content discovered through various channels. I know I read more newspapers now than in pre-Internet days, thanks to links encountered online. And if I’m interested, I do click through.

But for whatever reason, AP is concerned that their creative content is being stolen and says they will be developing fair use guidelines for bloggers. Good luck with that!

momentarily…

Wow, I’m going to be blogging at Moments in Crime next week. Guess I’ll have to behave myself.