Why I changed the title of my blog
You probably weren’t here for the years that this blog was called “The Written World Blog.” That’s because I, like millions of other writers with personal blogs, have been less than diligent in keeping it up. I’ve slacked off. I’ve let it lie fallow and make me feel guilty, like a lazy father who lets his kid eat gummy bears three meals a day.
Regardless, and whether I get better at updating this thing or not, I decided a moment ago to change the name of it to “A Note on the Side.”
If that isn’t what it’s called when. you read this, I probably have another post somewhere that says “Why I changed the title of my blog again.”
Basically, I like things to wrap up neatly. I like to make connections and give readers a through-line. I like for things to fit in nice slots, organically without my intervention. And so changing the name of this blog was, after years of not noticing, a no-brainer.
It's all about my books.
If you haven’t already, you might buy one or many of my books using the links on my book page, at https://kevintumlinson.com/books. Any book you find there is likely to have one thing in common with all the others: A Note at the End.
Years ago, I started including an author’s note at the end of all my books. Only I never liked calling it an “author’s note.” It made it sound boring and clinical to me. Like a note on a medical chart, a quick scribble that didn’t really add anything to the story you’d just read, but mostly got used to thank this person you’ve never heard of, and that publisher you’ll never meet. And while I think gratitude is a vital habit to cultivate, I don’t tend to use that final space in my books for that. I use it for giving you a bit more meat from the bone.
It’s not more of the story. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with the story at all.
True, at times I share bits of behind-the-scenes, telling you where I was writing or what inspired this or that. People generally like to read that stuff. I do, for sure.
But sometimes I go off on tangents. I’ve written about the business of writing, for example, mostly as a way to explain why a book exists, or what my plans are for the rest of my career. Or for the rest of the day, sometimes.
But the point is, “Note at the End” isn’t part of any formula, per se. Except that I write one for every book. That’s as formulaic as it gets.
No, the Note at the End is almost like a blog post in and of itself. It’s a personal message from me to the reader bold enough to have stayed after the curtain lowered on the story. They stuck around for the credits, and I respect that. So it’s the after party for the book. You just spent 200+ pages listening to Kevin the Author, now you get a few minutes with Kevin the Guy. The man behind the man. The human who puts on an Author skin each day.
I was thinking about this after I read a post on George R.R. Martin’s blog, about his experience watching the Woody Allen film “Midnight in Paris,” and reading Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast.” It’s worth a read, if you have some time. It’s all about nostalgia for days gone by in fandom and in the author. landscape. A little melancholy, but it makes you think.
Reading it, I recalled…”I have a blog! I wonder what happened to it?”
And what happened to it was I experimented, tried some things, messed around with branding, and generally let it all fall by the wayside. Again.
I will not promise you that it won’t happen again. I won’t, because I honestly can’t say for sure. Writing a blog is as much work as writing anything, and if I’m going to write anything, why not another book?
But I like blogs. I was blogging before anyone had a term for it. And I tried like made to make blogging profitable in the era of Blogging-Capital-B. But I’m too lazy for the kind of thing it took to pull that off.
Still… blogging is this indie-as-heck activity. Like podcasting (another activity I’m fond of), and writing self-published novels. I like the idea of it. I want to get back to it. And like most of the good things I’ve done in my life, I decided, why not?
I’m a why not guy.
But looking at the blog, assessing its current state and wondering what to do next, I decided as well that it needed to fit better with the rest of my work and life. It needed to feel more like “me.” It needed the same raw-but-crafted feel as if it were a part of my literary output.
So… it needed to be a Note on the Side.
On the side of what?
My books. My other work and life and career. Not something I try to make the center, per se, but something that points back to the center. Something that people can stumble upon and enjoy. Something that can be a sideline view of my career.
A Note on the Side.*
It’ll stay under this name for awhile, I think. It’s fitting and fun, and very me. I may even start dropping author’s notes from my books here. I haven’t decided.
But whatever it becomes, what it is right now is a good place to drop a few thoughts that I hope you’ll enjoy. I’m not going to attempt to make this thing another job. I do that too often. But I do think it would be fun to have a conversation with you. So… here we are.
And the comments are turned on. So if you want to talk back, this is your moment. Leave a comment, and I’ll work on the habit of checking in to see if there’s anything there. And when I see it, I’ll respond.
That’s it. That’s why I changed it, and that’s where we are. So, for now, good night, God bless, and I’ll see you again soon.
*[EDIT - 09:01 AM Central - 01/16/2021: See? I told you I’d probably change it again. I didn’t even make it 24 hours before I realized that as much as “A Note on the Side” was a nice echo of “A Note at the End,” the title of every author’s note at the end of every book I publish, there was a much better title stating me right in the face. So as of now, this blog is called “Side Note.” Because that’s just cool, man.”