The Blog that Used to Be About Australia: Update on What I Wrote about Towards the End of My Last Post

I'm feeling better about things now.

I'm still plagued by my phobia, OCD, and various anxieties. But I've kind of pushed that to the back of my mind for now—both the issues themselves and the issue of how to treat/deal with them.

I had worried that I had quit/took a hiatus at the wrong time, because I had just paid for a subscription to Haaretz. I worried that I wouldn't enjoy reading it "just for fun", because it would remind me that I had taken a break from writing the posts, and that would make me sad.

That turned out to be a false prediction. I'm totally fine reading Haaretz.

I actually felt better morning after I posted and probably could have returned to writing the Nazi-Jew-Holocaust-Israel posts. But....

Maybe I felt foolish jumping right back in.

I decided to continue on with the break and work on other things. One project I've started to work on is printing out a copy of my novel The Dead are Online. I had should have done that back in 2014 but never got around to it.

Certain discussions in my family and the Station Eleven miniseries are probably what inspired me to finally start working on the project.

I've had this worry lately that the world as we know it is going to end...probably from what I hear on the news AND from watching Station Eleven.

I imagine the Internet going away. Bye bye Cloud. And there goes my dream of descendants and other future people reading all the shit that I've written. (I mean lately. I have a bin of manuscripts that I wrote decades ago).

I'm planning to use Lulu.com.

Just getting the right dimensions on Google Docs for a trade paperback took me hours.

Now I'm very slowly going through and changing the novel from third person present tense to third person past tense. I'm hoping that this will make the novel more readable.

I've been kind of tempted to modernize the book—change the 2014 pop culture references to ones more relevant to 2022. But I think I'm going to refrain from doing so.

I'm also considering...if I rewrite the novel for a trade book version, maybe I should update the e-book.

Yeah. I'll probably do that.

Or maybe not.

My plan for the trade book version is to make only one copy and keep it for myself at home. Then at some point, maybe I'll read it and if I'm not horrified by a bunch of mistakes I missed, I'll maybe buy other copies and try to sell them or give them away.

OR it might be enough to have just the one copy for myself and the (fantasy) relative who will one day discover the dusty book and decide to read it.

As for my Nazi/Jew/Holocaust/Israel posts....

A day or two ago, I decided that I didn't want to stop the Eleanor Roosevelt posts. Though I was tired of them and very ready to move onto the next thing, abandoning the project made me uneasy. Part of it was about being uneasy with quitting...which in itself should be ignored. We shouldn't stick with projects just because we're ashamed to quit.

BUT I also feel there is more to learn from Roosevelt.

Or maybe I feel some kind of emotional attachment to her column.

I decided that I would finish the project but space those posts out between other posts.

I was eager to get on with all the other post ideas. I have so many of them.

BUT.....

Today I'm questioning if I want to continue the posts in the first place.

I was all into the research posts, telling myself it doesn't matter if I have a ton of readers, because I was mostly doing it for myself. And I couldn't just research without writing it in a post....

I felt it wouldn't work.

But then last night I ended up learning that the real life allegedly-possessed child who inspired The Exorcist novel and movie grew up to work for NASA.

Whether he was truly possessed, a creative prankster, misdiagnosed, abused, telekinetic, or the target of a poltergeist, the fact that Ronald Hunkeler had a long successful life and helped us get to space....it brings me joy.

And it gave me something to obsessively research last night and today.

I played with the story on Google Maps looking at the various Ronald-Hunkeler-related buildings on Street View.

I thought I needed to blog while going on such journeys.

But it turns out...I don't.

That's not saying I won't do more research posts.

I'll just have to imagine there's a purpose beyond "I'm mostly doing it for myself".

It's kind of hard to imagine there is a purpose beyond that.

I suspect my research posts are mostly annoying, tedious, self-indulgent, way too long, etc. But even if they are also brilliant and entertaining...the world is overflowing with content.

I guess that's why I feel it's better to concentrate on PRINTED content...for when the Internet is gone and people are eagerly seeking content.

If the Lulu thing works out for my novel, I might also make books of some of my blog posts. This might be a good idea for other bloggers...if they haven't done so already. Not going to mention any names....