Congratulations: It's a blog.
I have this website, right? And it comes with a free blog. I mean, I pay dollars for the website to be a thing and live on the internet, so I guess it's not a free blog. But it's a blog! And it's mine! So here I am: blogging. I guess.
My name's Brian, and I'm a writer and editor living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I wrote a novel and I just started the process of annoying (querying) a bunch of strangers (literary agents) in the hopes that they'll read it and maybe agree with me that it's pretty good (it is).
When people ask me what my novel is about, I like to say, "weirdos on a spaceship trying not to die." See? I told you it's pretty good.
The process of trying to get an agent is pretty miserable, I think. I'm not being revolutionary or innovative by saying that, but it bears repeating. It really sucks. And I know it sucks for the agents, too. Every morning they're greeted with a deluge of emails from people who've worked hard--and then it's their job to hit delete on, like, 99 percent of them.
I worked for a year at a literary agency when I was about 22. My friends nicknamed me the Dream Crusher. It was not inaccurate. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Anyway! In addition to having written my first novel, I also work as a writer and as the managing editor for a company called ZergNet. It's been nuts over there for the last couple weeks. I had to binge-watch Stranger Things season 2 so I could write an article about hidden Easter Eggs, which then got turned into a video. Luckily, I managed to shoehorn a whole paragraph about ALF into it, so that was time well spent. Then I went and caught Thor: Ragnarok and wrote an article (and video) about that, specifically to explain the ending. My favorite part? My cleverly hidden reference to Space Jam. Oh, yes. I'm doing God's work.
Today was my first day working as the editor on our forthcoming new site, which will be all about video games. It'll launch pretty soon, but in the meantime, it's been interesting getting back into writing and thinking about gaming all day. That's another thing I used to do: when I first moved to Minneapolis, I was a full-time video game news blogger.
Didn't think you could do that and actually earn a living, did you? Because I definitely didn't. For about two years I worked on writing hundreds of articles for the site--news, reviews, features, the whole thing. Then the company I was writing for decided to flush the site down the memory hole and there's little to no evidence that I ever had that job. So I think what I'm trying to say is always follow your dreams. And save copies of your work.
Whoa, that got unexpectedly bitter.
Anywho, once the new video game site is live I'll post a link to it here maybe! That's what blogs are for, right?
And if not that, what will this blog be for? Well, I'm honestly not sure. This is the first post. It might be the last. The internet is unpredictable like that. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business" is playing in the background as I finish this, and it seems appropriate. Writing this blog--that's business. I just took care of it.
First post: done. PUT IT IN THE BOOKS.