fox@fury
The Pierzanthification of Fury
Monday, Apr 21, 2003
So there's this thing that happens to some writers, probably best typified by Piers Anthony, when writing the Xanth series.

The author sets out creating an original work from the soul, exploring ideas and delving deep into their own creative well. The work meets success and they do it again. Then they start to find out, in the case of Xanth, that most of the readers are in the 'young adult' demographic, and then he starts writing to that demographic. Happily for both him and his publisher, sales shoot up in that demographic, but what the sales figures won't show, nor would the publisher care, is that it's not the same young adults. The young adults who were enraptured by A Spell for Chameleon and the Gift of Magic are, by and large, repulsed by Heaven Cent, and The Color of Her Panties.

Piers provides another, even clearer line in the 'Apprentice Adept' series, the first three of which are great and inventive, and the second three lowered their sights to the Scholastic Magazine crowd again.

What's my point? I didn't write tonight to bash Piers Anthony, but instead to bash myself.

When I started writing regularly on Fury, I didn't know what I was 'supposed' to write about. I didn't know who I was writing to, and so I just wrote from my heart to the void. Wherever there was passion there were words, and from words came the blog. Before there were comments there was just the void when I peered out from Fury. I knew there were eyeballs, but I didn't know whose they were.

Now I know my audience, perhaps too well. I feel like I'm writing to a specific group of people, even if most readers never leave comments. I've been slacking off on the more inaccessible UI criticisms and insights, and therein lies the problem. They're not inaccessable, but I've taken on the role of a TV producer who want's everyone to get every joke, even if they're less funny on average.

I want to write about love, but i don't, because I know my audience.

I want to write about the interviews I'll be going on in the next month, but I don't, because I know my audience.

I want to write about stupid things that don't matter, but I don't, because I've come to respect my audience, and I have this stupid idea that I shouldn't waste their time.

I know what you're thinking: "Clearly, you don't know us that well."

Ahh, but you can see now that I do. I can read your mind.

And no, I won't do it again. I'm not going to tell you what you're thinking now.

...

Almost every blogger has that time when they go on hiatus, but I refuse to. Maybe it's an aversion to the melodrama of throwing up my hands and saying 'fuck the blog' only to crawl back to my computer master within a few days, weeks, or months, as everyone does eventually.

So instead I slack off.

For every post you read on Fury there are five interesting things I wanted to share, but don't because I feel it's not the right venue, or because I need to make it perfect and extracurricular perfection is the first sacrificial lamb of grad school.

...

So what's the point? I suppose I am saying fuck it, in a fashion. As was the case with all those temporary abandoners of blogs, in all likelihood you won't notice a difference after a few months, and things will be back to usual, but perhaps not.

...

So I'm going to forget my audience. I'm going to close my eyes and divest myself of the compulsion to write posts that will garner the most feedback (this self-serving distraction from schoolwork notwithstanding).

The steady dribble of posts is, at least for the time being, a thing of the past.

In its place, I'll be posting whenever and however I please. Out with the style guide, expectations, continuity, self-censorship to a point, anyhow [shhh!]

No, I'm not going anywhere. In a sense, perhaps, I'm coming back.

I'm so fucking melodramatic.

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aboutme

Hi, I'm Kevin Fox.
I've been blogging at Fury.com since 1998.
I can be reached at .

I also have a resume.

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pastwork

I've led design at Mozilla Labs, designed Gmail 1.0, Google Reader 2.0, FriendFeed, and a few special projects at Facebook.

©2012 Kevin Fox