Let’s begin with a wee bit of reassurance, shall we?
There are a great many aspects of myself that I am probably stuck with. (I will refrain from enumerating them here.) Nobody’s perfect, and I have no illusions that I would have been able to fool anyone in that regard under the best of circumstances. But of all the things (good and bad) I am, I try like hell not to be tacky.
So if you are good enough to be reading this rebooted blog of ours, allow me to promise you I did not decide to resume work on it for the sole purpose of blathering on about my writing elsewhere. Insofar as I can think of some aspect of it that may seem interesting to the audience here, I’ll write about it. (“Why the pseudonym?” has come up often enough that I may as well write a post, if only to have something I can just link in the future if I get asked again.) But I’m not going to make Blinded Trials II: The Blindening some kind of humblebragging clearinghouse.
To that end, I’ve decided to put a question I’ve been pondering to you lot, and you can tell me what your collective preference is. It’s a question I alluded to in my re-introductory post, which I’ll just ask outright:
To what degree would you here like me to mention/otherwise promote my work on other sites?
(1) “That is the most revoltingly self-aggrandizing question I can imagine. I am embarrassed for everyone that you are even asking it. If I want to read your writing at some other site, I’ll look for it. Not only am I never coming back to this blog, I am going to fling my computer into the sea now.”
(2) “I am currently in intensive grief counseling as I deal with the heartbreak of knowing there’s writing of yours that I have been missing. (Yeah sure fine, there’s your archive. But like I have that kind of free time, and some of those pieces were timely for fifteen whole minutes tops.) It will ease my pain to know I will not sorrow like this in the future. Share wantonly.”
(3) “Play it by ear, and stop overthinking this. If there are pieces of yours you’re particularly proud of, or that maybe you hope reach a wider audience, mention them here. Relatively straightforward bits of reportage you can skip. Saunders completists can always avail themselves of Twitter.”
I await your thoughts.
I would consider putting up a “Digest” once a week with everything you, Elizabeth, and Tod have had published the previous week. Unless there is something super time-sensitive, and important, in which case point us the way!
I yearn for as much writing from all three authors here that is available, as I would were each word fashioned out of dark, sweet, and silky chocolate. It would be literally impossible for you to include too many links.
Now, if I don’t have a lot of time on my hands at any given moment, I’m not going to actually click on the links, because time. Blogging is an asynchronous activity. But when I get a moment to relax and read, oh yeah. Chocolate.
My answer is probably #3. A digest is good, but I might not look at it as much as if it’s referred to here at Blinded Trials.
So a semi-consensus is (sorry I’m commenting and posting today under multiple personalities by accident): Let’s round up each, say, Friday? With all that we’ve written in all media, throughout the universe?
That works for me! Tod, assuming you eventually see this, I assume you’re game?
Roundup seems good to me. I’m in the habit of visiting your author pages at the Daily Beast every so often, so I’m not concerned that I’ll miss anything that isn’t for some reason time sensitive. But if you write stuff at a venue that’s neither here nor the DB, that’s the kind of thing I’d definitely want a heads up on.
I’m tempted to respond with a resounding #2, in large part because googling “Daily Beast + Russel Sanders” never seems to work for me.
But I will say #3 only because I am a good friend and encouraging you to relax and not overthink things seems like the sort of thing a good friend like me would do while good friending you.
Note: I share no such compunction about being self-aggrandizing.
#3. Totally #3.
You know, it would be nice if the Daily Beast could learn how to host an RSS feed.
One internet server goes down?