Lost in the Blogosphere...,

I am wondering if, since this blog is about Academic Writing, there is an across-the-board rule that each post must be grammar-perfect, to the letter.

Cuz if that's the case, I ain't gonna do well on this thang...

So, writing.bytes. is a new baby in the blogging world...so much so that, with few entries currently posted, common readers--that's right, I'm talking to YOU, and will be for the remainder of this post--may not know quite what to expect.

Allow me to quell your fears by letting you know that you're not alone.  I don't know what to expect, either.  I'm not sure what I will impart about this work, this craft, this art.  I'm not quite sure what I'm doing just yet.  I am, to be quite colloquial, lost in the blogosphere.

I come from a hallowed school of writing where the revered Dean was Professor Me (although I would have to give a lot of credit to Professor Roger Ebert, too).  I worked as a film critic--first for the prestigious Online Film Critics Society, and later for nothing more than my own personal obsession--for about five years.  My writing was completely self-taught.  "Grammar School," as many refer to elementary school, was strictly that; "Writing School" took place in my house, in front of my computer screen, talking about how incredible American Beauty was (and it was...don't argue with me).  Not even high school did much to shape me as a writer, certainly not in any 'academic' sense (which, unfortunately, is also the case with many of my clients at Wright State University's Writing Center).

Yet even for me, someone completely confident in his own writing ability, an introduction to true academic writing provided me with something incredibly worthwhile.  It showed me that writing can be taught...it is not just a gift bestowed on a person in the womb.  It also taught me that writing is a process, one that can consistently produce strong work if followed faithfully.  (Following said process is, sadly, something that has always eluded me, as evidenced by this, my wildly rambling inaugural post on writing.bytes.)  In short, everyone can write.  Everyone can write.

Why am writing all this?  Some of you might be confused ("where are the lectures on subject-verb agreement?!?!?!" you must be asking yourselves) so I will try to clear it all up.  This blog is a forum on the many different faces and many different perspectives of academic writing.  Special attention should be paid to the intangible diversity of said faces and said perspectives.  It will be hard to focus on this subject from any other perspective aside from my own.  Yet my own Writing-centrism actually makes me a part of a much larger spread of humanity.  We are all "Writing-centric"--we all have our own perspectives on writing, academic or otherwise. Some of your views may be different from mine, but the exchange of ideas that magically happens over this high-tech Internet wizardry--the conversation we have together--will bring us together in...well, Academic Writing Harmony, if you will.

Oh yeah, I promised I would get to the point.  Here it is: you, dear reader--be you student, teacher, literary scholar, or average-joe blog-hopper--are not alone.  I am just as unsure of my place in this new venue as you are.  I am lost in this blogosphere just like you.

But I intend to settle in and find my home.  I invite you to join me.