Last year I claimed that I started this blog on 10 March 2002, but I was lying. It was actually March 7 2002, which means I once again missed my anniversary. Not that it’s that important; I only started blogging because I needed some outlet for my frustration at reading the news and Usenet was dying and poisoned and by and large Wis[s]e Words has remained just that, a vehicle for my own thoughts. Anything more ambitious I might have hoped for has not been realised, largely because of my own laziness and reluctance to become a Stan Lee -like self promoter, as well as the usual distractions of Real Life. Over the years I’ve written a lot of reasonable posts, some truly bad ones and slightly more quite good ones, or so I’d like to think. Neilalien, a far better blogger than I, put it best when on his ten year anniversary he said:
It’s a creative outlet that brings me great joy- but I don’t let it take over my life, and I never make it a job. I don’t blog when I don’t feel like blogging. I don’t link to something that doesn’t interest me or that I haven’t read. (Nothing is more obvious and damning than a lack of interest.) I’ve always refused free review copies partly because I never wanted to feel the pressure of having to review a book. Adding ads to the site adds obligation to generate eyeballs, and potential smell-tests. The blog is not toil and trouble, it’s an escape from toil and trouble. So as yet, I never burned out. I kept it fun. If by protecting my joy, that means I haven’t shared or given of myself as much as I could have or as much as people expect from a weblog, or seem aloof, or I haven’t reviewed a comic book in a timely fashion, or I don’t get that book deal or get paid for blogging, or it means the night-sweat horror of a million missed links- so be it. The weblog is what it is. I do stubbornly addictively resist going a week without blogging, but if I do, so be it- you’ve always known what you’re getting, a working guy in his pajamas when he has time to blog about one of his life’s passions. I respect the audience, and try to be the consummate classy professional- like a Broadway actor or the Undertaker, when that curtain goes up, it’s A-Game time, regardless of what’s happening backstage or if the entrance pyrotechnics just gave you second-degree burns- I have never blogged about ennui with comics or blogging- but the moment I think to myself that I *must* blog today, that I owe you anything for visiting a free personal website, it’s over.