Get off the Unicorn – Anne McCaffrey – Delrey Book – Ballantine Books – New York – 1977.
A collection of Short Stories by Anne McCaffrey: there is a story “Daughter” in this collection that always makes me think about blogging, and what happens to blogs over the passing of time.
I had been thinking a lot about what brought me to blogging as an interest. I have been writing for just over a year now and had written just over a hundred posts. I was noticing that I was writing more every month and that it was getting easier every time. Getting to the Fresh Pressed page was an incredible affirmation of my writing. The response to Purple is a Neutral – Really has been totally overwhelming. It keeps me wanting to write more!
Daughter was first released in a SciFi magazine (The Many Worlds of Science Fiction) in 1971. It was included in this book in 1977. I read originally the year it was released in the book format. At the time the story really resonated with me and stayed with me as one my favorite short storeys.
I was re-reading some of my books a few years ago and read “Daughter” again. I had read it many times over the years, but this last time, another aspect of the story caught my interest. As I reread the story, I was caught by what Nora – the main character – was studying. The class was to read/listen to old journals, stored in the computer (remember this was written in the early 1970’s) and then record the important data and delete the rest of the data to free up storage space. The eventual purpose of the class was to track the trends of how people were working with and feeling about computers in general. The information was historical in nature.
Are the blogs we are writing now going to be viewed in the future as accurate portrayals of life now? In a few hundred years or so will our blogs be read and recorded for history? Many of our current understandings of history come from the hand-written journals of our ancestors. We are writing our own history. I wanted to help write history. I find the concept fascinating. It probably comes from too many years of reading Science Fiction, some of it now Science Fact!
I had tried keeping a written journal in the past, but I never stuck to it. This time I sort of eased into the writing. I had started recording my knitting, needles, times etc. – I needed the information for pattern writing. First, I discovered Ravelry and that made recording my knitting even easier – and I could add pictures. Once the store got a computer, I started Mad About Ewe’s blog. Then I was inspired to start my own blog. I wasn’t sure if it would take – but it has! I have had so much fun writing and taking pictures.
This morning we went walking at Piper’s Lagoon. A wonderful park off Hammond Bay Rd. The sun was not long up and slowing rose in the sky as we walked around the point. As we walked around the sun would momentarily blind us and then disappear around a tree or outcropping – the point at Piper’s is pretty rugged. It also was unusually dry as we have had less rain than normal. You can see the dryness in the colours of the underbrush and leaves as we walked through the paths, crisscrossed with roots and broken stones. The prevailing winds are from the North-West there and the trees reflect this, bending and growing close to the ground in some places and branches growing away from the wind in others. This is usually a very green boggy park. It is the home of Garry Oaks and Arbutus trees and in the spring you can find banks of Curly Lily’s more properly called White Fawn Lily – usually very moist – it was very unique to see it in this dry state. The bark of the Arbutus trees seemed redder than normal and the greens of their leaves brighter!
It was a glorious west-coast morning.
Happy Knitting
Lynette