Blogging, am now a blogger, wow, wouldn't have imagined that phrase coming out of my mouth 15 years ago

Hi folks,

My name is Emilie. You don't know me yet, but I'm a soon-to-be published, fabulously famous writer finishing my novel and working in New Orleans. To be honest, I don't know how famous I want to be. I remember thinking, when I was younger, that the good thing about being a writer is that your words, your worlds, are famous but you are not. You can still go to the grocery store and not be accosted. That used to be the sad, beautiful thing about being a writer. Stephen King, JK Rowling, YouTube, MyFace and hundreds of reality t.v. shows later, this is not always the case. Writers are stars (and yes, some always were) and people are even famous just for being famous.

So that's my way of saying I'm ambivilant about blogging. Primarily because of delicious little trainwrecks like this: Emily Gould Blogs All

I jumped into the Internet in a big way between the ages of about 16-19. Built a website, wrote fanfic and made dozens of friends I'd never actually met in person. I had people emailing me about an alternate history soap opera I was writing about Anastasia and the last of the Romanovs, and I wrote roleplay scenarios based on the characters of LJ Smith. I was a huge dork and I loved it. But then I went to college and next thing you know, classes and new friends I could actually hug took over my life. I asked my roleplaying co-writer to take over my character temporarily and then later to gracefully kill her off. And I moved on.

But the Internet's been calling me back ever since. I joined LiveJournal because my boyfriend at the time and all of our friends were on it. Enjoyed the hell out of that, but always felt a little queasy about it too. Next thing you know, everybody was on MySpace and wanted me to talk to them there. So I joined up, but hardly used my account until slowly but surely I was always there and never on LiveJournal. And the progression went on with Facebook. Collectively, I shall call these "online social networks" MyFace.

I've discovered they're useful. For keeping up with friends when I'm exceptionally busy and for getting the word out about my writing and events (and those of my friends). They also create a weird distance that must be bridged. For instance, it worries me when it's easier to write a little note on my friend's wall than to call them to say hello. Sure, I live in a new city and am away from the bulk of my friends, but that's what phones were invented for, yes? And we'll talk later about the tragic death of the letter.

So this blog will be about things I find interesting, the status of my writing and what it's like to be in New Orleans. When I sell my book, I'll break the news here. When it's about to be published, I'll harass everyone here to buy it. When I'm coming to your town, the schedule will be here. And when I'm engrossed in something cool like say, oh, Post Secret, I'll let you know with a little link like so: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

I will not overshare about personal issues. For that, you'll have to call me and/or buy me a drink. But I think I'm about ready to be *my kind* of blogger. Let's see, shall we?

-Jill of All Trades, Master of One aka Emilie