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I've finally done it

I've been avoiding it, really. Blogs are a big enough time-suck on my life that I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea. But the voice of temptation in the back of my head keeps suggesting that maybe having my own blog will prove a boon rather than bane. Maybe I'll spout off here instead off all over cyberdom, saving time and energy. Do you think? The feeling of speaking aloud in an empty room is almost eerie.

The biggest reason in favor of my having a blog is also the biggest reason against it. I'm a writer. I hope to be famous some day. (Or at least paid.) Web pages and blogs can be a great tool for a writer for connecting to her audience, or potential audience. It can also be a fabulous way to alienate her audience. I intend to try to have my cake and eat it too. I know I'm not going to be able to keep my big mouth shut, so for this blog I'm Synova. Oh, I don't care if everyone knows that my name is Julie Pascal. That's not it at all. But hopefully it will be easier for people who like Synova to find Julie and less easy for people who like Julie (once I get a static website up) to find Synova.

Yes, I know that anyone can find anything... I'm talking about the level of ease involved. It's one thing to hope your potential audience can forgive your politics and quite another to rub their faces in it.

Because I know, even when I try to make it not matter, that it ruins my enjoyment of someone's books or singing or acting if I find it too difficult to pretend that I don't know how much of an idiot they are. But I do try to pretend and I'm going to count on the fact that other people are a bit like me.

So what do I expect to put on this site? At a "start your blog now" seminar I recently attended the lady giving the talk recommended keeping any blog narrowly focused. She had lots of excellent reasons for giving that advice. I'm going to ignore all of them. I'm going to talk about what I feel like talking about. I don't have the self-dicipline to avoid politics. I'll definately talk about science fiction and what I'm writing at any given time. Maybe I'll post bits I'm working on. I'd like to do some reviewing, plugging authors I think deserve more attention. (I'm not going to give negative reviews. If I can't say something good I'd rather say nothing at all.) I'm also interested in gardening and a little bit interested in cooking. I may occasionally mention homeschooling or what my kids are doing or my Christian faith.

If anyone cares, I have a long usenet history. My newsgroups have been mostly misc.education.home-school.christian and rec.arts.sf.composition. I emphatically recommend both of them. The homeschool group is a bit of a rough playground sometimes, but I like it that way. Rec.arts.sf.composition is an incredible resource. My only advice for a new visitor there is that they're going to require you to put qualifications on your statements... I think, only my opinion... that sort of thing.

I've got quite a few blogs bookmarked. Most of my posting lately has been on Vodkapundit (as Julie,) Blackfive and GayPatriot. Real soon now I'll figure out how to link them. Yes, I know blogger makes it so easy a monkey could do it, but you have to figure I even screwed up their "create your blog" process. I'm *talented*.

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