In the early 1990's I took a few trips to zoo's, and amusement parks in Southern California, and to begin to do more than ride my bike only to and from work.
As part of this occasional activity I took my camera along to record, for posterity, the places I visited, and the things I saw.
It was important for me to have a record of the fact that I DID manage to get out of the house, and away from work, on occasion.
I had spent too many years just coming home from work and, except for excursions to various book and video stores, and Cineplexes, across Los Angeles County, didn't get out much.
Once I got online, at the end of the decade, and began to participate in Online Communities, I actually began to share my experiences with others and this led to including such stories in my blogging, especially my BikeBlog.
I like sharing my travel experiences, and my thoughts on the things I see in world we live in, because it helps my writing skills, and may spur readers to get out and explore their own surroundings.
Speaking about "Place" and writing about it...is the Blogosphere a "Place"?
The new National Literary Journal, from the Department of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, called Ecotone, has a blog written by its Editor, and it is an interesting place to visit.
It is called Re-Imagining Place:
The journal's ambition is to remap and reimagine place in contemporary writing.
This blog, on the other hand, is itself a place, we believe--if the blogosphere can be considered A PLACE--and here we will not only reinvent the idea of place, but subvert it, explode it, and swallow it whole.
Last October he asked this question: Is the Blogosphere "a place"?
The idea of the blogosphere as place—this virtual landscape in which physical landmarks are connected by thematic, relational or irrational links—is not a difficult one to enter.
But consider this: the screen, two dimensional, flat, pixilated, contains the idea of three dimensions, reflections of three dimensional lives digested mostly through text.
And the text contains multitudes, contains regional cross-sections of lives pulsating upon a three dimensional globe spinning wildly, contains the daily struggles and milestones and rants and musings of people plugged in, sitting in an office or living room or coffee shop, plugging all of this into—where exactly?
Okay, yeah, so?
His answer involves a basketball, a business-sized envelope, and a paring knife. ;-D
It is my hope that my writings, listed below, will serve as inspiration for others to try their own hand at writing about "Place".
Prompting Yourself to Write 1: What's Outside My Window?
Prompting Yourself to Write 3: Describe Your Ideal Writing Space
Prompting Yourself to Write 4: Before you were born
Prompting Yourself to Write 6: Write about Something Seen on a Journey
Prompting Yourself to Write 7: Write about your job
Celebrating the Fall in Photo and Word
It's a Long Way to the Prairie
A Hike in the UCLA Stunt Ranch Reserve at Cold Creek
Back to Basics Approach to Crime Prevention Seen in Santa Ana?
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