In Other News

I’m thinking about radically changing this blog.  I like writing, but I don’t like blogging.  I’ve done my due diligence, trying to come up with things to post about, and I just don’t really care what I have to say, at least when it comes to poetry and editing.  And I think it shows.  More and more it shows, as more and more I come to the realization that I just don’t care.  And if I don’t care why would you care?  Do you care?  Would anyone be heartbroken if I deleted all 233 posts I’ve made so far and turned this into a travel log of my trips between the office, the grocery store, and the garbage disposal?  Honk if you’re horny, I guess.  I’m not.

9 Comments

  1. Looking back, apparently there was a phase where I wasn’t phoning in posts. I went through and deleted everything else. Maybe I had things to say, but I don’t anymore. Next post will be the start of something different.

  2. Tim, I read and enjoy your posts. Thanks!

  3. I care! But I know the feeling. (= I’d like to keep hearing what you have to say if you want to keep saying it.

  4. Tim,
    I’ve really enjoyed your blog. I appreciate the inside-the-industry, or inside-the-journal perspective.

    I realize that having a baby changes all priorities. Everything seems so urgent and pressing, while writing and supposing seems so, well, slow and removed. Perhaps this is what you are feeling?

    At any rate, my two cents: Don’t stop the blogging!

    – drew

  5. I really hope it’s going to become a lolcat blog.

  6. I think the only other comment I put up between your blog and the magazine you edit was something offensive enough to be removed…

    but I read the poems up at Rattle daily(usually skim reviews) and check here once or twice a week — for instance you deleted a recent post about the VQR drama.

    Back editing a blog seems besides the point (like someone going back to erase diary entries), but I for one will miss the earnest, insider comments from an editor managing a major poetry publication even if you too often groan about your relative size to importance ratio… and, at the risk of being both shallow and ego-baiting, having someone like Christian Wiman drop by gives this blog the allure of exclusivity or at least the sense that this is a small room where people don’t need to shout over the crowds to be heard.

    I don’t know you, but you sound depressed — take a break, try reading for pleasure (or pleasure in idleness), take the time for a vanity project i.e. slowly as you can, reread the Iliad(trans. Lattimore).

  7. Thanks, Steven — I don’t think I would have removed a comment as too offensive, unless it was extremely offensive, which is rare. It might have just been flagged as spam — turns out that happens fairly often, and I never read through the filtered comments, so miss a lot. (It’s really incredible how many spam comments there are, even with Akismet.

    Anyway, I’m not depressed at all, I just never really liked blogging, and had been doing it because I felt like it was something I should try, not really because it was something I wanted to do. In blogging, I feel compelled to comment on things that I don’t really want to talk about, and the VQR drama is a good example of that — I’m interested, because of the surreal quality of seeing the cover of another literary magazine on the Today show, and because I’ve met Ted, and so on, but I have nothing to say about that situation. Why would I? So why should I?

    I don’t like the literary scene, don’t care about the literary scene — I think I thought that blogging about it would make me part of it, and give me a reason to pay attention. I thought it’d be nice to try to demystify the publication process a little, and that goal lines up nicely with my editorial ideals for the magazine.

    But in the end, it’s really just a forced effort, and I’m not going to force it anymore.

  8. Drew–

    Another example of having to save a comment from spam for no reason…I wouldn’t even have checked today if it wasn’t for Steven’s comment.

    But I think you’re right — it is the baby that makes a difference. Anything that isn’t obviously worthwhile suddenly seems not at all worth doing. I’ve also decided to be more selective when it comes to doing readings. A reshuffling of priorities.

    I’m not going to go away, though, I’m just going to change the way I use and think of this space. Somehow it has to be enjoyable for me, that’s the bottom line.

  9. I understand completely. I tried blogging and lasted a month I think. Now my blog is just a little billboard for my work.

    Just don’t worry about it. I wouldn’t delete or change anything, but just don’t worry. If you feel like writing something, write it. I agree with the former commentor that the insider information that you write about, the running of Rattle specifically, is interesting.

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