Webpage Ramblings

When I got published in the anthology Rum and Runestones, I was given a chance to write a bio about myself.  Well, I did…and in that bio mentioned my personal website, MJ Blehart.  At the time I mentioned my website, it was nothing but a domain I owned – but it was unhosted.  When I learned the actual release of the anthology was days away, I determined that I had better not leave the site without content.

SO – I set out to create content for my personal website.  I determined to reuse the template my friend Mike gave me for Off the Compass Solutions – only I recolored it and made a few other small changes for my other site.  I started out with a front page, a bio page, and then a few random photos.  I then decided to add a sample of the poems I have written over the years.  I also determined that a page of some of my photos might be kinda cool, too.

The next item was what stories do I share?  The Source Chronicles have a web page – and the first 6 chapters of book 1 are there.  So that wasn’t what I wanted to put here.  So I decided to put up some shorter, completed novels – a couple of my NaNoWriMo projects.  In the 5 years I have participated in National Novel Writer’s Month, I have finished 3 stories.

I am pretty sure no one wants me to post a 200+ page story directly to the web.  SO I determined to save them in sections as PDF.  And I chose to put up first Shades of Mediocrity from 2008, and then The Journey of a Thousand Miles…Begins with a Trip to the Post Office from 2006.  Both of these are not my usual sci-fi and fantasy genre I work from.  But I think it’s a good example of the range of my writing abilities (there are plenty of advertisements and press materials I have created in the business world over the years, too).  I also feel both are fairly strong stories.

I had a great deal of trepidation about putting out Journey.  It is NOT the most flattering piece of work – I in fact paint myself as quite the asshole at various parts.  However – I think it is a great piece of dark humor that I created, and while I am semi-embarrassed by it, I am deeply proud of it.  So there it is…I have more or less laid myself open for the world to see.

Now I just need an agent to see this work, and offer to represent me so I can get some stand alone work published.  Or an enthusiastic publisher would be ok, too.