Michael the Girl

Authorial Contract

I love speculative fiction. (Are you shocked? An SF lover on the internet? Gasp!) One of the things I love is fulfillment of the authorial contract. This is an implied contract between the author and the reader. Each book has it's own contract; they promise to enlighten or entertain or educate or something. Most people sorta kinda know this, but it's not always that obvious. In SF it's pretty obvious because the first thing that happens in an SF book is reader confusion. To fulfill their contract (yes, I'm using 'their' wrong, I know it's wrong, but the times they are a-changing and grammar had better get with it) the author will eliminate the reader's confusion by the end of the book. It's nice to know that the author, who has an entire universe of strange customs, places and people, has stopped to introduce me to their universe instead of just going ahead and telling the story, my understanding be damned.

In the spirit of authorial contracts (though not this explicit) I've decided to, at the very least, outline what I might write about.

Um. . . everything.

Pro'bly not too much about writing (yes, I've read this post; yes I'm failing). Pro'bly not too much about music. And pro'bly not too much about my daily life.

But I'm interested in things like science, pop culture, ethics, comic books, the news, movies, history, comparative religious studies, stalking Neil Gaiman, economics, environmentalism, anime, linguistics, urban planning, y'know, stuff. I don't claim to be an expert on anything. Nor am I affiliated with any group. But lately, I've had ideas about the way the world is run.

I'm guessing my first few posts are going to be about fixing things. Things that can, in no real way be fixed. It's pretty fricking pretentious, but while everything I say is likely useless (is that better or worse than being detrimental?) there is some reasoning behind it.

1) I have a unique point of view. 2) The conversation is already going on.

I'm pretty sure these are the most legitimate reasons for blogging.

For those of our audience following along at home:

Michael the Girl is a blog. Its reason for existence is to help its writer (me) get over my writing related anxiety. My goal is to write and post something everyday. As part of my agreement with readers (yes, I know there aren't any, this is in the event of) I will bring a unique perspective to the conversation. And to hopefully quit being so darn meta.

But I'm not making any promises.

posted by Mike @ 1:44 PM