{"id":111,"date":"2005-07-31T16:34:06","date_gmt":"2005-07-31T20:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2005\/07\/31\/last-post-for-the-summer\/"},"modified":"2005-07-31T16:34:06","modified_gmt":"2005-07-31T20:34:06","slug":"last-post-for-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2005\/07\/31\/last-post-for-the-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Last post for the summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s almost August. I’m waiting with bated breath for Maria<\/a> to post a follow up on her attendance at Bloghercon this weekend, wondering if any new perspectives really emerged from the conference. (And I see that Maria has posted her account here<\/a>!) Otherwise, I’m getting ready to go on a pixel-diet of sorts, since August is traditionally a vacation month and I, too, plan on taking time off from routine. <\/p>\n

About the list of blogs and sites that refer to e-learning issues, which I thought I’d write and post here: I decided that there isn’t really going to be any value in posting this list, especially since many of the sites simply repeat links found elsewhere, without necessarily adding commentary or analysis. I already referred to the ones that did give me useful information in posts prior to this, so I’ll leave it at that. As more interesting entries come along, I’ll post them, August holiday excepted.<\/p>\n

I’m rethinking my options, looking for a way to find\/ generate income-producing work, and will try to put the writing of blog posts (as well as the reading of them) on the back burner — in favour of reflection, other projects, and taking time to enjoy the grandiose, gentle, blissfully temperate summer we are privileged to enjoy here on the West Coast. At the same time, since this blogging business is a highly addictive passion, I’m not so sure I can do without my blogly friends for long. Part of this weekend, which I already intended to spend offline, was instead spent reading and sometimes commenting on Shelley’s Burningbird, here at To Google, Pregnancy is Evil<\/a>, as well as her Follow-Up to When We are Needed<\/a>, which was a follow-up, logically enough, to When We are Needed<\/a>. Another blog-related bit of commenting took place in my own space, here in the July 27<\/a> entry in response to a comment by an old friend with whom I was at Harvard. She pointed me to a new project undertaken by our erstwhile thesis advisor, and my response was anything but casual. That particular post already had a speculative postscript of sorts which diverged considerably from the original starting point, and adding in the comments thread<\/a>, it’s now a real coat of many colours. Call me Joe. I did get some things worked out and articulated, though, and that’s what keeps me interested. <\/p>\n

When I do this sort of connecting<\/i>, conversing with different voices out there, I feel very energised, and much differently charged than when I’m writing some piece destined for a file somewhere. Perhaps it’s the sense of immediacy in the voices and the conversations. At the same time, there are vastly different perspectives on blogging and writing (and whether the two have much in common) that are hard to dismiss. The following passage is from a May 30, 2003 email that a high-ranking features editor at a very glossy New York City based magazine sent me. She had at one time shown interest in a story I sent to her magazine in 2000 and I briefly reconnected with her after I started blogging, admittedly because I wanted to keep the door to her office at least ajar. In my email to her, I mentioned that I had started blogging. She wrote back:<\/p>\n

Not that you asked me, but when l looked into the Harvard blogging sites, I formed the (admittedly hasty) impression that these efforts have no more connection with serious writing than a good phone conversation or a chatty e-mail. “Real” writing is the creation of a complete, organized work–even a 350-word journalistic sketch. I could be wrong, but I think blogging is merely fun, and a postponement of writing. Joining a workshop or taking a course would be more helpful in my view. You would be more likely to finish a piece, instead of making a daily random hit.<\/i> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know if that door is in any sense still ajar, because I’m not in a mood to look. As is obvious from my saving of her email, I never forgot this dismissive summation, and it haunts me because I can’t, for the life of me, see the difference between some of the well-written blog posts out there and anything that’s put in the “lifestyles” or “arts and culture” section of any<\/i> magazine. With some blog posts, I can’t even see the difference between them and the seriously vetted articles published by so-called high-brow journals. Still, the remark haunts me because it suggests that there is an insurmountable barrier between writing for the love of writing and speculating and thinking out loud vs writing for a cheque. The latter seems somehow cut off from doing it for the love of it, and I find that troubling<\/i>. I admit that I am terrified of writing on demand, even though I know I can do it as easily as passing water.<\/p>\n

Maybe Freud was right and potty-training does leave traumatic scars. (joke…)<\/p>\n

At any rate, today is July 31 and this August is going to be a time off for me. If there’s anything really great out there I should read, send me email (click on my name at the bottom of each entry and it takes you to a page with a little envelope icon. Alternately, just click here<\/a>… I hope everyone has a great summer (or winter, for those of you “down under”!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s almost August. I’m waiting with bated breath for Maria to post a follow up on her attendance at Bloghercon this weekend, wondering if any new perspectives really emerged from the conference. (And I see that Maria has posted her account here!) Otherwise, I’m getting ready to go on a pixel-diet of sorts, since August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yulelogstories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}