Do the Evolution, Baby!

This Pearl Jam video (one of my favorite songs of theirs, I ought to add, amazing how they've evolved over the years, come and think of it) is a rather apt way to bridge into yet two more SF/F bloggers who've blogged recently about their blogs and what they want to do with them. While the word "evolution" isn't used in them, I think it's suitable for what Graeme and Adam have examined the past couple of days on their blogs.

Evolution is a vital thing in so many parts of our lives, not just for bloggers trying to find ways to mix in fun and joy with work and perhaps the need to remain "relevant." I myself have changed quite a bit over the years here, as the blog archives will show. This blog originally was meant to be a way of tying in larger SF/F stuff to what was going on at wotmania's Other Fantasy section. In the past couple of years, my priorities have reversed; I now consider the work I do here to be more relevant and important than what I am currently doing (almost nothing, sad to say) at wotmania.

Also, I am a relatively late newcomer to speculative fiction, or at least to the type of it sold in specially-marked parts of bookstores. I'm rediscovering my love for various types of mimetic or "literary" fiction, not to mention developing a taste for well-done graphic novels and other media of literary discourse. What I happen to like isn't going to appeal to a huge audience, but that's okay with me, as I like to push the boundaries a bit and sometimes that'll see me straying into literary territories where many cannot or will not follow me (non-English literature read in the original languages - especially Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese - or to books that have little to no speculative elements to them).

I'm like Adam in that I don't care to run competitions on this blog, although I am willing to host occasional ones for wotmania's OF section (and perhaps for the successor site set to begin in either August or September of this year). Interviews are fun, but draining. Am toying with the idea of arranging for occasional Q&As, where readers here (and people on various forums) can submit questions, I organize it into a single block of questions and an author can answer as s/he chooses, before posting the results back here. If there was interest for that and if I felt the participation would be there (I'd like a minimum of a dozen questions to make it worthwhile), I could see that being a nice supplement (but never a substitute) for the interviews that I like to do.

All this is dependent on my time and energy. Right now, I'm in crunch time at work and my posts will be shorter and my reviews fewer until late May. Might have a few surprises in store, but for now, I'm shuddering at the thought of getting up in 4 hours; Wednesday's planned day off will be quite invigorating, I hope. So if any of you want to weigh in about the possibility of establishing Q&As (and suggesting authors, although I'd prefer to limit it to ones with whom I'm familiar to some extent), please let me know in the comments section.

And in the meantime, continue doing the evolution.