Blogging.

Why? What’s so important that I feel I should set my alarm and get ready for work early so that I can sit at the computer and write about my family and my life?

I find it soothing. It relaxes me. If I don’t get to do this, I feel like I might explode.

Crazy, huh?

But the other day I found a bit of insight in an essay by Ray Bradbury:

‘I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet, running in circles, and yelling for a clean pair of spats.’

The quote is from a book I just started reading by Bradbury entitled ‘Zen in the Art of Writing‘.

Darn it, Bradbury’s right.

A lot of my readers are fellow writers and bloggers, so the above probably comes as no surprise to you. Late at night something awakes you, and you feel that hot, burning sensation rise from the base of your neck to the back of your head. That Thing under the bed that compels you to get up and jot something down or fling open your laptop.

Maybe it happens in the middle of the day, when you’re in the middle of some menial chore. That little voice that creeps in to your consciousness and whispers, ‘Have I got a story for you…’

The zen in blogging is that there is a certain freedom to having your own space to create and be discovered. You not only get to exorcise whatever demons may be plaguing you, or share your triumphs, or simply rant about things that you love and despise, but you also join a community. You find kindred spirits who actually enjoy looking at pictures of your goofy kids! We as bloggers, see in other bloggers a bit of ourselves. But we also quickly learn that in our similarities we are each unique individuals, with our own gifts to share.

Blogging is about creating something, but it’s also about sharing, writing to be read, and in many cases, reading to be read. I don’t know that anything else with this much power has existed before in the history of mankind. No one is telling you not to, more often than not, you’ll find encouragement. There’s no publisher telling you you’re not good enough. If a post isn’t good enough, it’s up to you to click ‘publish’.

You’ll learn from the feedback whether you were received well. If not, do you care? What are your goals for your blog? Are you trying to make money? Then maybe you should care about your audience. Are you just having fun? Then you’re getting the most out of this crazy fun hobby, and the audience doesn’t matter. If you keep honing your skills, they’ll catch up…

I’d like to leave you today with one final thought from Mr. Bradbury:

‘Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.

After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

Now, it’s your turn. Jump!’

See you in the blogosphere…

The sisters relate to each other...

As a Daddy Blogger, I find myself in a unique situation: I have a 15 year old step-daughter and a two year old daughter. I feel that this gives me a different perspective. I came into Kat’s life when she was four years old, so I missed the diapers and the slow development of her language skills. I’ve watched her grow up and marveled at her dreams and the decisions that she’s made. Even though I’ve had those eleven years of being a Daddy, with Calli it feels like I’m a brand new Daddy. Now I get the diapers and laugh at the way she reasons out words. Bunnies are ‘hoppies’ for instance. Doggies are ‘goggies’. With a new baby boy on the way in August, that’ll be a whole new world, as now I’m so used to girls, what do I do?

Which brings me back to the big bad teenager. As she grows older, our tastes and opinions are starting to spread further and further apart. When kids are young, they generally like what you like, so it’s easy to relate. As they get older, they gain more opportunities to explore the world without you there. I think Kat read all the Twilight books before I knew it was such a big deal. I just watched the movie and still don’t get it.

When Kat was young, she was in to super hero comics. Powerpuff Girls ran supreme, but she also enjoyed Batman and Superman. Our tastes were similar. I discovered Ranma 1/2 and brought home the anime (Japanese animation). It was all over. Kat is still a veracious comic reader, but now it’s pretty much strictly manga (Japanese comics). I enjoy manga too, but a different ‘flavor’ than her.

Kat's taste in Manga generally looks like this...

We both still love Science Fiction (we can totally agree on ‘Firefly‘ forever!), I’m toying with the idea of driving down the mountain for Starfest this weekend, snowstorm from heck permitting, and I decided to ask Kat if she wants to go.

“That depends. Is it that science fiction that you like?”

I laughed. “The science fiction that I like? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, like, I don’t want to say Ray Bradbury, but I don’t like Ray Bradbury that much…”

You could probably hear the audible cracking of my heart…

“…but, you know, those books you like.”

I laughed again. “Well, let’s see. The guests you’ll probably care about are Brent Spiner, you know, Data on Next Gen? And…”

My taste in Manga. See what I mean?

She stopped me right there, as I predicted. “If Data’s there, I’m going!”

So I guess I can still relate a little, after all! Now if the weather can go easy on us, hopefully we’ll see Data together tomorrow!

*On a personal note, as if this post hasn’t revealed how much of a geek I am already, I have volunteered to teach a class on creating comics at my local public library. My credentials basically consist of the librarians noticed I was in there every other day checking out graphic novels with a different character on my t-shirt every time. The kids are very interested in Manga, so I’ve enlisted Kat’s help. She promised to just kick back and laugh at me. I hope she’s kidding!  I know that somehow I’ve attracted a couple of comics professionals to this blog, so any friendly advice would be greatly appreciated!

Fahrenheit 451 cover courtesy of amazon.com

If you’ve read Ray Bradbury‘s brilliant ‘Fahrenheit 451‘, you probably still have visions in your head of homes being destroyed because they dared to have books inside them. I know I do. That’s why an entry at bookshopblog really disturbed me. In their post, ‘Book burning on Feb. 10th 2009 due to CPSIA‘, they claim that according to new CPSIA laws, a book store or library can not sell or distribute items that do not have a certificate stating that they have been tested and proclaimed lead-free. Furthermore, this law is retroactive, meaning that even if the item was published fifty years ago, if it hasn’t been tested, you can’t distribute it!

What Does This Mean?

This means that you can’t trust anything. Even books. Destroy everything you own! (Not really, calm down and keep reading.)

I found another bit of reporting over at kreelanwarrior.com. In the post ‘Lead In Books – Another Reason To Get An Amazon Kindle‘, Michael R. Hicks makes the point that all this talk of lead in books should push everyone to buy an Amazon Kindle. He was immediately rebuked by his readers, who told him that books were lead-free. He posted a correction on the blog, but kept the entry there to preserve the discussion.

There’s a lot of information and misinformation out there concerning this topic. Just scan the folks talking about this at twitter!

Bottom line that I’ve discerned from all of this? 

Books are safe. Give them to your kids. Read them to your kids. Talk about them with your kids. They need books to awaken their imagination!

While I’m on the subject of books, there’s a great organization co-founded by Jimmy Gownley that I’d like to give a shout out to. It’s called Kids Love Comics, and they promote literacy through comics and sequential art. I remember comics being a huge part of my life growing up. (Who am I kiddin, they’re a huge part NOW!) They increased my vocabulary and got the creative juices flowing. When I did (do) pick up a novel or some other book without pictures, I could often imagine the art that would be in the comic version even more so than I could see the film. So to hear that there is actually an organization that promotes such things, all I can say is bravo! And. Let’s not let Fahrenheit 451 happen to us!