February 11, 2002
I did a vanity search earlier today while I was trying to look busy. For those who've never done it, a vanity search is when you type your name into a search engine like Google and see where your name shows up. I show up in a lot of places, and not always by design. What can I say, Google's very thorough.
But one of the pages that came up was a story I wrote and posted on one of the Star Trek newsgroups my freshman year. Good god does my writing ever suck. Or, it did then anyway. I'd like to think I improved.
For a while, during my freshman, sophomore and junior years, I took part in an e-mail-based role-playing game that was based on extrapolation from the (then-)current Star Trek universe. I'd like to think it helped my story writing. Otherwise it was just a time-sink for three years, and I'd hate to think Ispent that much time on it to get nothing out of it. I mean, I had fun, but I'd like to have become better for all the time I invested.
It got me thinking about my writing now. It isn't storytelling, at least not in the strictest sense. It's more of a one-sided conversation. And I've noticed that my style is very derivative of other frequently-updated sites. Spinnwebe and Not My Desk seem to be the sites with styles most similar to mine. Makes sense, since I read both of them on a regular basis and the writers seem to share many of my personality traits.
So while you're cruising around the Web with nothing to do (hey, you're here, aren't you?) go ahead and check them out. If you like my stuff, you'll probably like theirs too.
And feel free to check the first Brain Farts, starting on April 2nd, 2001, to see if this constant writing has done anything for me in the skills department.
