So I’ve been contemplating doing a Gearworld blog.

A lot of people have expressed interest in Gearworld recently, and I’ve been shrinking from efforts to publish it or license it or whatever, since it’s such a nebulous and personal thing, but after the third or fourth such e-mail in a month, James turned to me one morning, and said more-or-less out of the blue “You need to write a Gearworld story.”

“Err.” I said. “I can’t do that. There’s no…no…plot…thing…” (My deep, gut feeling is that I cannot write a Gearworld story in the conventional sense. Normally I would question this, but with the haphazard, delicate, nailing-jello-to-the-wall method in which Gearworld proceeds, I don’t dare. When I try to force things, Gearworld gets mad at me and clamps down, and then I’m screwed.)

“Well, do SOMETHING,” he said, “before somebody else does.”

I stared into my coffee and considered.

The thing is, I could do a sort of…travel narrative…interspersed with random thoughts and occasional art. I can do that. Initially I thought it might be an interesting kind of webcomic idea–heavy on the writing, occasional spot illustration. But again, I’d be forcing the art frequently, and it would update sporadically at best, so…errf, maybe not.

But a blog…I could probably manage a blog. As LJ has proved, I can write blog entries all the live-long day. I am GOOD at blogging. I could string together a rambling and disjointed travel narrative with general gearworld thoughts and whatever art I do produce, and completely random moments. And if it doesn’t update regularly (as it certainly wouldn’t) people are less likely to write and say “Have you done more yet! Do more! Do more!” which is an absolute creativity killer and simply ensures that it’ll be at least another week before I can even think about it again. (A sense of obligation is no substitute for a muse.) It’d have to be something I could put down whenever I didn’t have any interest, or was too busy, and not feel guilt over. Gearworld comes when it comes, and I have no control over the process. But like anything, I suspect it would respond well to momentum, and the sheer ease of updating a blog might make that momentum easier.

I dunno, any thoughts?

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