"Rebuffering"

A few nips & tucks to the blog: most of the linkage on the side-bar will be drastically edited for a spring-cleaning binge & purge, and a slight shift in direction accompanies the make-over as I transition more to a hybrid site (otherwise known as dissociative identity blog disorder).

 Between using Google Reader and the Blogspot Dashboard I can easily stay abreast of the approximately hundred or so blogs I personally follow. But many of the links that have been up here for the past couple years lain fallow, and there's a couple that I flat-out need to wash my virtual hands of.  Anything in particular that's eye brain-catching would merit mention or linkage in a specific post, like for example Steve's series of blogging meta going on over at "What Do I Know." Or this excellent rant "America: You Keep Using That Word..." from Stonekettle Station that went viral a while back.

The set of links about "AK Artsy-Fartsy" was washed out, with a few select organizations merging into "AK Linkage"... and the "Local Talent" plus the "AK Blogroll" sections went away as well. Remains to be seen if or when an equivalent Maine roster will materialize - I just got word that my waitlist is over for a table at the Maine Comic Arts Festival in Portland next month, and hopefully I'll make a bunch of new contacts at the gig.

Posting here will probably drop back to weekends only, and there will be a little bit longer lull before the current Maine-themed material starts appearing, due to delay with "first-time publication" licensing rights. It's funny how the bungee-cord is still dropping projects back in Alaska long after my transplant for the same reason: once a production cycle is set up so far in the future it's weird to watch things materialize long after the fact.

Which, by way of a spoiler, means a couple publications in this neck of the woods have picked up my feature. Details will be forthcoming, but one is a major regional magazine with a national circulation of over a 100k; and another is an alternative newspaper that might seem small by East Coast standards, but whose circulation tops out over my hometown paper's (the second-biggest paper in the second-biggest city of Alaska).

I have to admit to some nervousness along with the excitement: there's enough overlap between Alaska and Maine so as to not burn out on creating effectively twice the material for separate markets, but poking about into previously uncharted waters is not without some trepidation. Fortunately there's always the familiar beavers, moose and bear (oh my), backwoods hairy folk and stupid tourists (of which I am technically both) to make fun of. Never a dull moment and there's definitely no shortage of material...