So, why a blog? And why now?

This is not the first blog I’ve had, or even the first one at this address. I tend to give up on blogging when it seems to take over my life to the point that it’s interfering with my passion and vocation, which is fiction writing.

The problem is, this doesn’t change the fact that I still have things to say. So I start making some commentary on social media. Then I expand on that. Then it becomes a conversation. Then I’m spending all my time on social media, and I cut back from that to almost nothing.

The problem is, this doesn’t change the fact that I still have things to say, either.

After considering the options, I decided that a blog where I can sound off as I want or need to was the best choice, from a time and resource management point of view. Yes, I am active on social blogging sites, but here I can shape my message as I see fit and manage the conversations that I find worth my time to have.

That the first real post made on this blog was about an odious man being odious should not be taken as a token of everything that is to come. It’s more or less a coincidence. I spent a lot of time yesterday tracking down a DNS problem and then a back-end server problem, or else this blog would have gone up early yesterday afternoon and the first post would have been something else.

But the timing worked out so that this morning was my first real chance to get this going, and it happened that I had a made a statement on Twitter the night before that deserved amplification and support. So it goes.

Those of you who follow me on Dreamwidth know that at various times I’ve treated my space there as a differing mix of professional status report and personal blog. For a long time, though, it hasn’t felt like the right place to put my thoughts out, and just lately it hasn’t felt like the right place in general. It feels like an apartment I sublet rather than a house where I live, if that makes sense.

I’m more comfortable working in WordPress, and I can host it myself. I’m not closing my Dreamwidth account or the associated Livejournal one, and I may still post to them, and will certainly use them when commenting on other blogs hosted on those sites.

But the long and the short of it is, I’m moving my blogging operations here.

This is home.