Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
– “The Sound of Silence,” Simon & Garfunkel
Okay, so a blog post isn’t exactly “darkness.” But that quote sorta fits, and I wanted to open with a song lyric (I’ll explain why later).
In case you couldn’t guess, I’m Matt Bechtel. Thank you again for your interest in, and support of, my writing.
Technically, I’ve never had a blog before, but the key word there is “technically.” Long ago in a land far away known as high school, I wrote a column in the monthly school paper. Ten years after that (and now twelve years ago), I penned an original humor column in a local weekly newspaper that quickly became one of its most popular features. Then I was a regular contributor on the Necon E-Books web site, where I used to write articles titled “Bechtel’s Buckshot Blog.” So while I’ve never operated and maintained my own blog before, returning to a forum where I’m expected to write from the hip feels like old hat (hence the Simon & Garfunkle quote, or to steal from Yogi Berra, “It’s deja vú all over again!”).
So, what’s this blog gonna be? Damned if I know exactly for sure yet, so I added a bunch of categories to cover what I expect I’ll wind up writing and tagged this introductory post with all of ’em. In relative order of importance —
Me, holding a baby goat. This picture has nothing to do with the content of this blog, but the goat is particularly handsome.
• Writing, W.I.P., Flash Fiction, Humor, Reading — A post about writing (and the business thereof); about my current Work In Progress; featuring original pieces of flash fiction (yes, I plan to publish new work here); featuring original humor columns; and featuring videos of me reading my work.
• News, Events, Necon — A post about news I have to share; about events I’ll be attending; and specifically about the Northeastern Writers’ Conference, a.k.a. Camp Necon.
• Guest Blogger — A post written by somebody other than me, assuming I can convince someone else to take the con for an article.
• Beer / Booze, Books, Food, Movies / TV, Music, Sports — C’mon, do I really have to explain these tags?
• Random Musings — Stuff that doesn’t exactly fit under any other category.
I’d like to say that I’ll be posting a new article here every week, but I’d also like to say that I had a full head of hair when I first shaved my head and that hair loss had nothing to do with my decision. So I’ll aim for at least every other week to start and see how it goes.
Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings; I promise to try to make them as entertaining as possible!
Cheers,
– Matt
P.S. — Why I decided to open with a song lyric — back when I worked for Bob Booth at Providence College, I always used to set the rolling text screensaver on my old Acer PC to a different song lyric every week. Some of my choices got me in trouble (turns out there were people in the office at a Catholic college who didn’t appreciate the word “hell” floating across my monitor), but mostly everyone looked forward to seeing what I’d come up with each week. Especially Bob. So not only does opening each blog with a lyric give me the chance to share some of my favorite snippets of musical poetry, it’s also a call back to those days with Bob at the Publication Center (days that wound up shaping much of the course of my life). And I hereby promise you all that I’ll never quote a bad song, so when I inevitably pick one that you don’t know, go look it up!
