no foolin' in April

I've just looked at the number of posts for March and I'm disappointed in myself. The numbers are dwindling. However, I fear this month they will be even worse because the semester is winding down and I'm going to pretty much be reading and/or grading papers from now until the end of the semester. Thus, my goal for this month is to do at least one post a week. I'm also going to feature a Q&A with the aforementioned Heather Grace Stewart, a Canadian poet who has great taste in television shows and understands the balancing act of family life and writing life.

In the meantime, when not knee-deep in student-drafted annotated bibilographies and exploratory topic proposals and field research reports, I have been looking at the gallies for Ordinary World and making corrections. One thing that has come to my attention is that I have a rather unhealthy obsession w/ semi-colons. My twin brother once told me that semi-colons were invented by academics and not very useful. I wouldn't go that far--I rather like them, but I like chocolate cake, too. Doesn't mean I should be eating a whole one night after night.

I'm also still doing the best I can to promote Faking It, and to spread the word. The You Tube hits for the Artist's Craft interview are at 105 (100 of them are mine... Seriously though, I check in every few days, so a small number really does belong to me). I'm glad to see this, and hoping it's planting seeds, at the very least.

Finally, I'm seriously thinking about joining Twitter. My main motivation is to get the word out about Faking It. Apparently many authors are taking advantage of this. (I also think it would be fun to follow, among other people, Josh Malina.) My fear, however, is that I'll never leave my house again. Ever. That I'll lose my job. It's bad enough that I wake up in the morning thinking about my Facebook status. It's bad enough that I'm starting to think of myself in the third person, that I'm tempted to comment on student papers, "Elisa likes this" w/ a thumbs up symbol.

It got me thinking, though. Anthony S. Policastro's blog mentions the need to write a page every day. One of my very first posts was about the question of writing every day. I argued then, and I argue now, that blogging counts. Writing in your diary counts. Does Twitter count? Does contributing to the conversation on a forum count? Does writing in 140 characters or less count? I think it does. Because while I'm doing this seemingly insignificant, "low stakes" writing, I am composing another scene, another paragraph, listening to another piece of dialogue, and so on, in my head. You can chop vegetables while the meat is marinating, after all... What do you think?

Anyhoo, hope this post ties you over for now. More to come. Hang in w/ me,, please!