"don't neuter your blog."

I have great friends.

I had lunch this afternoon with Anonymous (the one of the Is Sex Work Empowering? debates),and we got to talking about our writing, her projects, and my blogging. I told her aobut all the theoretical stuff I've found about blogging--about groups who are deciding on a code of ethics for bloggers; on what the true purpose of blogs is; why all blogs may be equal, some blogs are more equal than others; and what's happened with my blog since I stared it.

My blog, not only being a means of disciplining my writing, is also a means of communication with a larger group of individuals. It has also evolved into a platform for editors and possible publishers to view my style of writing.

The latter point, though, makes putting very personal information on this blog perhaps inappropriate.

As y'all know, I flirted with the idea of starting up a livejournal page for personal stuff.

"no, don't do that," Brenda said, "as one of your 40 regular readers, I think it would take away from the personality of your blog."

As if I'm not a character enough ;-)

I know I heard this before from both Terry and Cherry, and, IIRC in an email from Schizophelia Jones so I figured that I have now heard it enough times that there may be something to it.

But what to do about using my blog for professional purposes?

Brenda suggested that I keep the integrity of this blog, but start another blog strictly for professional purposes.

Egads Holmes! Pure Genius!

So, I have now started a professional blog, titled (at Brenda's suggestion) Nerotically Talented. This is only a working title for the moment, and nothing's posted there yet, but now that it's up, I can start pulling it together.

Which means my primary posting...including all sorts of stuff on religion, blogging and Lucky Bastard will still be here.

Wow...I'm glad that bit of conscience-wrangling is over!