http://jeffreywdern.com, and why you should care about it

Folks, it is with a proud and heavy heart that I announce the launch of my 1990s-era dream, http://jeffreywdern.com!

Now, one thing you may notice is that http://jeffreywdern.com (also accessible via www.jeffreywdern.com and www.jeffreywdern.com when I've tried it) is not hosted by Blogger/Blogspot. It's powered by Wordpress, which as I've mentioned before, I've been playing with for a few weeks now. http://jeffreywdern.com is the culmination of that decision process.

Which isn't to say that I don't like Blogger/Blogspot. I do. I've gotten used to it, gotten accustomed to wrangling it. We've had some really good times. This week, the site reached over 1000 hits since its inception, which I honestly never thought I'd see. But I decided to go with Wordpress for one very simple and overwhelming reason:

I just like it better.

There's a whole host of factors that went into the decision, but on the whole, what Wordpress has given me is a cleaner, neater looking site that's easier for you to navigate and me to edit. So I think that we'll both be happier with http://jeffreywdern.com.

What this all means is that I'll no longer be updating this site. It won't go away entirely -- I wouldn't do that, I'm much too nostalgic. If you get lost, this update (the last and topmost) will be there to redirect you, since Blogger/Blogspot doesn't allow for 301 automatic redirecting.  (If that ever changes, I'll implement it gleefully.)  I'll even check back here semi-regularly to check out and reply to comments. I will look back on breaking the 1000-hit milestone with fondness. But all the new stuff's going to be on http://jeffreywdern.com so that's where you should go for reviews and other musings.

http://jeffreywdern.com. I'm excited.  Can you tell?  I think we're going to have a lot of fun with it.

March Madness is nearly over ...

... and I'm not talking about basketball.

In the latter half of March, I turned a year older and got myself a job. No, it's not a cool, geeky job in IT -- which I am woefully underqualified for regardless -- or the comic book industry. But it's a good job working with good people and I was lucky to get it, and now I'll be able to do things like put gas in my car, take my girlfriend out to dinner, and buy books.

Sadly, while I've been training for that, the things I love doing -- namely working on Project: Oz, reading fantasy fiction, and blogging about the two -- have all come to a grinding halt. Happily, once my training period is over, that will change, and things will shift back towards something like the status quo of at least one update per week.

Looking forward, I'll soon be back to talking about things like:

• Comparing and contrasting John Norman's Gor series with The Vagina Monologues et al., because I just happened to read them at approximately the same time and saw the humor in it;
• A guest review of China Mieville's Kraken over at The Ranting Dragon;
• Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes, because emotional literary masochism is good for us;
• For completion's sake, Clementine, Cherie Priest's other entry in her Clockwork Century;
• Felix Gilman's The Half-Made World;
• Caitlin Kittredge's The Iron Thorn, which certainly took long enough to get to me from the library so I hope it's any good; and 
• tackling the entirety of Tad Williams' Shadowmarch series.

These are, of course, just the book reviews that are coming up. Occasionally, other topics that pop into my mind -- musings on the writing process, my D&D game, etc. -- will get written down, too, just as I've been doing since I started this blog. And the book reviews that I've just mentioned (not necessarily in that order) are coming up soon-ish just because these are the books sitting on my coffee table or atop piles in my bedroom as I write this entry. Other reviews will come along pretty much in the order that I get the books in my hands.

And hopefully Friday I'll have a really exciting announcement about this blog that some of you have probably already guessed, you clever foxes, you.

I'm looking forward to it -- I hope you are, too!

BlogSpot, WordPress, and Me

Folks, for a long time now, I've considered taking this blog to the next level. We've had some good times here -- but I've consistently wondered whether or not BlogSpot was really the right forum for what I have to say.

With that said, check this out.

The WordPress blog is an experiment -- I'm still working on the aesthetics -- but so far, I like what I've been able to do with it: it's neater, cleaner, and more organized. With it, I'm able to take a blog and turn it into basically a full-power website. A lot of people have said that they've had trouble leaving comments on this blog, and there's not a subscription feature for when I post something new; WordPress fixes both of those things. And while it may not mean anything for you, it's a lot more convenient for me to make minor changes and updates.

In short, BlogSpot's been good to me, but I wonder if WordPress would be great for me.

But what does this mean for me? you may ask yourself. Not a thing. Let me make that perfectly clear: NOTHING FOR YOU WILL CHANGE EXCEPT FOR THE URL to the same content you've enjoyed for a while, and I will leave notice on this blog redirecting you to the new site if you get lost. My Twitter -- probably the way you came to this site -- will remain the same, and I'll advertise my posts the same way I have been for months.

This is still all very hypothetical, so I'd appreciate your feedback. If you can leave a comment on here, great. If not, you can email me at JeffreyWDern@gmail.com.

Thanks, everybody -- I can't wait to hear from y'all!

A word in edgewise

I'm going to try -- I'm going to try really hard -- to get a post in next week for you folks. Probably, it will be a book review, unless another topic just screams for my attention. So, cross your fingers and look for that.

Just in case I don't make it, though, I'm giving you good folks a double dose (technically a triple dose) of posts this week to tide you all over.

In the meantime, have some tea and talk amongst yourselves. ;)

Before all that ...

Before I get into my actual post, just two minor spots of housekeeping:

I'm going to make the effort to update this blog at least once a week, preferably on Monday.

I'm strongly considering taking this blog to LiveJournal. There are pros and cons to that system versus Blogger/Blogspot here -- the biggest pro to LiveJournal being that I'm intimately familiar with it, having used it for a private journal for several years now. Wherever this blog eventually winds up, it will still be open to the public, so no worries about losing me completely!

Right. Now on to actual substance ...

Holy crap, I have a blog! and What I'm reading lately.

Like leaving the baby on the stove ...

Way back when, I went to the Writer's Workshop at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It was a fine experience, and one I definitely recommend, whether you're just starting out (like me) or already published and moderately successful. Because you can never be too good, right? And among the advice those fine folks from Antioch gave me, was to be publicly accessible, which meant having such things as a blog and a Twitter account.

The latter was simple; the former, less so. Say what you like about it, but Twitter is one of the simplest things you can do if you've got the right tools: take ten seconds out of your life to make an account, and then if you've got anything resembling a modern cell phone (or just an internet connection, which you already need to make the Twitter account, of course), you can tweet to your heart's content.

So, I made a (second) Twitter account for my professional life -- that is, one that focuses primarily on my literary world -- and something like the third or fourth blog account I've ever made for myself. But the problem with blogs, unlike Twitter, is that you've actually got to put some thought in it. You've got to take the time out of your busy life to put down a cogent thought or two. Who has the time or the energy for that?

Well, truthfully, I do, but I've just plain ignored the silly thing up until recently; it's always been in my mind, nagging me with that same feeling that I forgot to put the garage door down, but there's always been something more important that needed my attention more immediately (like researching the amenities of hotels in 1880s Kansas City). And anyway, who wants to read about a book that's only a third of the way finished in its roughest form? I'm not going to divulge plot points or anything substantive about my work, so there really won't be anything juicy on here. But I'm going to try to make a more concerted effort to talk about the writing process -- because it's the thing people keeping asking about at parties -- and also about what I'm reading. Because no man is an island,and I take comfort in reading stories that didn't spring out of my own mind.

So spread the word, invite your friends, make comments, share thoughts.
It's Jeff's literary world, folks. You're just living in it.

_______________________

In other worlds ...

I just finished In The Night Garden, The Orphan's Tales, Vol. 1, by Catherynne M. Valente (Spectra, 2006). This book is like nothing I've ever read: a modern-day Arabian Nights filled with witches and polar bears who turn into men and princes and princesses and Quests and sea monsters and ...

It's hard to say what this book is actually about, except to say that it's about a strange girl who tells a princeling stories that only she knows, and that each story spirals into another story, which spirals into another, and into another. The tales are rarely isolated, and as the book continues, we're reintroduced to elements and ideas from previous tales, creating a really intricate web of storytelling that you just don't often find (I'm reminded a little of George R. R. Martin on a basic level). It's kind of dark, but in a PG-rated sort of way. On a technical front, it's an ambitious piece of work, and my hat is off to Valente for keeping all the plot threads straight and for resolving them the way she did. However, the pacing is a little slow, despite the brevity of many of the individual tales -- there are just so many of them! Still, stick with it and your patience will be rewarded.

I give this book a solid B, and I think I'll pick up the sequel, In The Cities of Coin and Spice, at the library today.

Right now I'm reading The Native Star, by M. K. Hobson (Spectra, 2010) on the recommendation of actress Felicia Day on her Twitter (which you must follow to retain any shred of geek cred). I don't know Ms. Day personally, of course, but I must say she's got pretty good taste. I'm not very far into The Native Star yet, but I look forward to getting through it; the start was solid, and I'm optimistic about the rest. Hopefully I'll have more to say about it later.

Aaaaaaaaand we're off!

Howdy, folks!

My name's Jeff, and this is the online chronicle of my attempts to write and eventually publish a novel.  Stay tuned!