Rant

Every blog needs a rant now and then so here's one for you today.

I was a fairly early adopter of podiobook listening at http://www.podiobooks.com/ There's a lot of sci fi on the site which I enjoy. (No surprise this.) I've listened to Lafferty, Lowell and Hutchins. I caught Sigler on his own feed. The Rookie made me laugh and was a good read. I'm not into horror so I pass by a lot. Only recently have I come to appreciate fantasy. I'm enjoying podcastle at http://www.podcastle.org/ and I've had Escapepod in my feed for a long time http://www.escapepod.org/

One of the things I've noticed is the incestuous character of science fiction podcasting. I think they like to think of it as networking. I interview you. You interview me. It's two podcasts. We get interviewed by a third person. That's three. Then we each interview the third person and that's two more podcasts. The bottom line though is there are only three people.

So Hutchins decides to have a big deal about short stories in his Seventh Son Universe and everybody's all excited. Don't get me wrong. I'll listen. I enjoyed the story. But come on. It's not that big a deal. It's a group of folks, mostly unpublished or published by very small presses, recording their stuff.

Writing for yourself, reading to small groups of people, it's been done forever and ever amen. This isn't news. There's just the Internet to spread the reading around. I think it's great, but it's not earthshaking. The campfire is just a little bigger and we don't have to worry about forest fires.

Am I sore because I'm not included, I'm not as good a writer yet?

I thought hard about this. At times, I am, but then at other times, most of the time, I am quite content to push on my own limitations and see where I go. I'm not so serious about all this.

You want to be a writer. Be a writer. Just don't keep going on and on about it. Write. Read. Publish. I'll listen if it's audio.

End of rant.