Sep 8, 2015

Okay, I’m back.

Yesterday, I devoted all of my creative energy to my Web site. It was the kind of day I love: I contributed at least a little writing to six separate articles (two of which I completed), and created three Delicate Negotiations cartoons.

What sort of writing did this entail? The most important piece was this week’s instalment of “The Daily Me.” This features anywhere from four to 12 short topical bits about the news of the day. It is based on an old idea propagated by Nicholas Negroponte: that we would have bots scouring the Internet to deliver a unique set of news items to us as often as we wanted them. The reason I started “The Daily Me” was because the format allowed me to comment on issues that didn’t inspire full columns; over time, I have realized that (because each item is attributed to a different organization) it has become something of a satire of the Internet itself.

I also finished an article of headlines; the basic format is that I take a headline from a newspaper (with attribution, of course) and give it a humourous headline. In a similar vein, I contributed to a column of quotes, which follow the same basic formula, except with the public utterances of people in the news rather than newspaper headlines. To give you a sense of why I don’t just write articles like this all the way through in one sitting, it’s worth noting that there are usually between 25 and 35 individual headlines/jokes in headline articles, and 15 to 25 quotes/jokes in quote articles. It takes time to collect them, and I prefer to write about them while they’re still fresh in my mind rather than wait until I have what I think will be enough to fill an entire article.

In addition to this, I wrote most of an article on my experiences at Fan Expo over the weekend. I pepper Les Pages aux Folles with occasional articles taken from my life experience; these tend to be more gentle, less cutting than the satire that is the meat of the Web site, but I believe that many readers appreciate finding out a little bit about me or following my personal experience.

Les Pages aux Folles (http://www.lespagesauxfolles.ca) is a rich stew, overflowing with ideas. I am very proud of it.