Many thanks to Anna for setting up a new feature for Big Blue Mess – a guestbook. I’ve put a link to the side; the actual link isn’t dolled up, but it is functional.

Some random thoughts…

I’m going to tell you a little story. Many years ago Lori had this notion that I should write down my stories, apparently I’d given her a chuckle or two on a couple of occasions. She even kindly made up a list of “my favorite Beth stories” so I had stories to practice on – some I’ve written up already on Big Blue Mess. Now I was flattered, but honestly I’m not a writer. Note, that’s present tense. At best, I’m a dabbler. I write like I speak and willingly abuse accepted grammatical rules. I know writers. People who can really tell a story and have vocabularies that hurt my brain; I do not count myself among those elite. Jonathan followed with encouragement, many links to humorous writing and e-mails that read, “with practice, you could write like this.” Finally it was Anna who actually tipped the scales with “we can write like this” and “here is your website to practice”. It would be a disservice to my other friends not to also acknowledge their encouragement, but these three people stand-out. They’re the kind of people who aren’t there just to blow wind up your skirt and make you feel good about yourself. Their opinions carry a lot of weight with me. My step-mother was also particulary encouraging and saved my e-mails suggesting I do the same. (I’d kill to have my original e-mail about Lady Bird.)

Anyway, to make a long story longer. Big Blue Mess solely serves as my practice site for my writing with a couple of notable exceptions. It’s my place to vomit on a screen and force my friends and family to read the garbage in my addled head. It’s nothing more than that. It’s not my pulpit to call down the wrath of my political or spiritual beliefs; it’s just slice-of-life stories.

The reason I initially hedged on having comments on is because I wanted the stories to stand on their own and not be an unwieldy discussion covering the globe of everyone’s spleen. Trust me when I say I mean that in the nicest way possible. I wanted feedback more than quips. Currently, the feedback on my stories I receive that helps me with my writing only comes through private e-mails; I love those. It helps me get a feel for what people like… what my three think works. It helps even if I can’t say that I’m getting any better.

That’s not to say I haven’t really enjoyed some of the comments/discussions, but it makes me think I may need a forum. I love to quip; I can do it all day; it helps me fine tune one of my actual skills – being snide.

So, if you see sometimes that the comments have gone off, it’s because I just want the story to stand on its own. Sometimes I want what I write about to be the most important thing on my website – a website designed to help me improve my writing (and I acknowledge that it’s not all good). On those days, I want you to actually read what I said and not rush to get your particular thoughts on toe jam thrown up in the comments section. While I am deeply interested in what you have to say, sometimes it’s going to have to wait a few days.

Those are my random thoughts on this site…

Big thanks to those of you who’ve given me feedback on my writing.