In the beginning...

Once upon a time, when my essay collection first came out – so this is back in the days of 2004 – I found myself trying to explain to people what the book was about. “Creative nonfiction,” I would say. Or “personal essays.” Or “musings about life and what the things that happen to us mean.” A couple of times I went so far as to say “they’re stories about collisions with the world. In the silence of our skulls, we can't really understand how someone else experiences the world. But we can send out messages. These are mine.” That last was directly from my publicity packet, and no more enlightening than the rest.

I was out in California – Fresno, I’m thinking – for my day job, having this conversation with a young woman (read: far more technically savvy and hip than I) who, upon hearing my convoluted description of my shiny, new, published-by-a-prestigious-university-press book exclaimed: “Oh! It’s like a blog!”

Okay, yes, I was insulted. I knew what a blog was (hey, I’m not THAT unhip), but I thought they were, well, less than literary. A passing fad. Nothing compared to the vast realm of real published work.

When my friend, a former Little, Brown assistant editor, said I should blog with my stories about promoting my book, I said no, I didn’t have time for that. When my mother, who has a jobette with Linkshare and sees every blog in the known universe, said I should blog, I patiently explained that blogging was a waste of energy for serious writers.

Five years later: here I am.

I concede. I capitulate. I jump on the proverbial band wagon (onto which, I’m reliably informed, 10,000 other people A DAY are also jumping – egad). Daily musings about collisions with the world. About love and power, and all that goes with them.

Hopefully there will be a happy ending.