Hello, all:
If you’ll indulge me, I wanted to start off this week with a bit of reminiscence. I was born in the late 80s, so I was right on the cusp of basically everything tech-related that we have now. For example, I remember using Windows 3.1 at first, and then, oh the excitement in our household when we got Windows 95 with the Start button! I had floppy disks and cassette tapes, VCRs, all that jazz.
More specifically, my first experience with social media was Myspace (I looked into it, didn’t like it), then Facebook (I thought it looked neat, joined up, never looked back). Then, somewhere around my college days in the 2000s, I happened upon Xanga.
Honestly, I miss it, I really do sometimes. It was like a proto-Substack in its heyday. I made good writing friends on there that I have to this day, I read good posts from other people, and, not to mention, Xanga changed my writing irrevocably. Until then I’d been writing serious stories, mostly within the superhero genre. There were definitely tragic, oh-no-what-have-I-done elements, more Tobey Maguire than early Tom Holland, if you will. One day someone hosted a writing contest, I took part, and in the process I discovered that I really liked writing comedic.
One day I was inspired to create a new character, one who derived her powers from a radioactive mozzarella cheesestick. And thus, Gaseous Girl was born. I liked it, people laughed, I found myself laughing, and, well, I rolled on from there.
Eventually I left Xanga, and before long Xanga went the way that Wordpress seems to be going now, at least that I can see. I did migrate to Wordpress once Xanga died, and kept a blog going on there for a good long while. Now, I am here. In the words of Col. Sherman Potter from M*A*S*H, “If you ain’t where you are, you’re no place!”
Couldn’t agree more, you know?
Writing Update
Sunday I inaugurated a new fiction serial: Gaseous Girl and the Winds of Time. The first chapter is here; the index page is here. There’ll be new chapters every Sunday afternoon.
Also, I hit and passed the 10,000-work mark in my current work in progress, the sequel to The Ballad of Evinrude and Eulalie. The 10,000th word, as best as I can tell, was…. drumroll please…. “to”. I hope for something more substantive when we reach 20K.
Closing Time
I imagine most fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation remember when Data read his poem about his cat Spot. I got to that episode on a rewatch this week, and I had forgotten that before he performed “Ode to Spot,”, he actually recited another poem he had written. The video and text are below; I found it quite thoughtful, actually.
"Then we sat on the sand for some time and observed
How the oceans that cover the world were perturbed
By the tides from the orbiting moon overhead
"How relaxing the sound of the waves is," you said.
I began to expound upon tidal effects
When you asked me to stop, looking somewhat perplexed
So I did not explain why the sunset turns red
And we watched the occurrence in silence instead."
Until next time,
Michael