Anyone who was familiar with my old Typepad blog will have realized long ago that this blog wasn't getting as much loving attention. I tried transferring material from one to the other for a while. But the original intent of my blog was to be a bibliography.
Yeah, that sounds kind of dry, but hear me out. While working on my first book, To One Who Lives On The Mainland, I found out two things: 1) Information about Melanesia from the late 1800's to 1940 is damned hard to find -- it pretty much doesn't exist. 2) When I did manage to find a bit of useful information in any format -- an antique book of anthropology, pen-and-ink drawings, a diary, an oral history, a mission report, a geographic study, personal letters from soldiers complaining of how much everything SUCKED...or ANYTHING -- it was a personal victory for me. I found the sources so fascinating that I had to share them.
Sure, I was writing a book based on these same sources. And the book followed out of my fascination with the people I was meeting through these vague sources. But the sources themselves were too hard-won to let them slip back into oblivion.
Well, that was years ago. The One Who Lives On The Mainland came out in December 2010, and since them I've (pretty much) finished another book (which has it's own bibliography blog), and begun a third.
So. Poor Blogger blog. So alone.
I feel guilty about this. I do. And I ask myself what to do. Make yet another blog? Rename this one and move on...damning the SEO torpedoes that would blow up new content under an old domain name? Close down everything and run to Tumblr?
Hmmm.
Yeah, that sounds kind of dry, but hear me out. While working on my first book, To One Who Lives On The Mainland, I found out two things: 1) Information about Melanesia from the late 1800's to 1940 is damned hard to find -- it pretty much doesn't exist. 2) When I did manage to find a bit of useful information in any format -- an antique book of anthropology, pen-and-ink drawings, a diary, an oral history, a mission report, a geographic study, personal letters from soldiers complaining of how much everything SUCKED...or ANYTHING -- it was a personal victory for me. I found the sources so fascinating that I had to share them.
Sure, I was writing a book based on these same sources. And the book followed out of my fascination with the people I was meeting through these vague sources. But the sources themselves were too hard-won to let them slip back into oblivion.
Well, that was years ago. The One Who Lives On The Mainland came out in December 2010, and since them I've (pretty much) finished another book (which has it's own bibliography blog), and begun a third.
So. Poor Blogger blog. So alone.
I feel guilty about this. I do. And I ask myself what to do. Make yet another blog? Rename this one and move on...damning the SEO torpedoes that would blow up new content under an old domain name? Close down everything and run to Tumblr?
Hmmm.
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