SLOGGING THROUGH BLOGGING
Some people will neither write nor even read blogs because they have an “ugly” name. Sounds too much like frogs or bogs or flogs? Actually it’s short for “web logs” which developed in the early days when people constantly cruised the internet and were in danger of forgetting the good “places” or needed a log of their voyage.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one’s name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
— Emily Dickinson
Put this on your blog list:
https://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=bog&org1=syl&org2=sl&org3=y&typeofrhyme=perfect
What about dog? Or eggnog?
How delightful to have a dog!
How personal to start a monologue
With someone who always agrees with you
No matter what your view!
A blog will do.
So I started “prairiemary” in April, 2005, and among the first posts were the series of short stories meant to illustrate Blackfeet time, called “12 Blackfeet Stories.” For high school kids, each story illustrates a generation. The print version is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%2212+Blackfeet+Stories%22&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
Other books by me at :
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Mary+Strachan+Scriver&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
The books were not printed in quantity, but are “print on demand” at Lulu.com https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&page=1&pageSize=10&q=Mary+Strachan+Scriver They are cheaper there. I started using Lulu in 2007 when all they did was print you a book and mail it. Now they’re much more complex and they are the ones who put my books on Amazon. Their original plan was to entice authors to do all the formatting and editing, then to order a quantity of copies to sell “off their arms” to all kinds of stores, not just bookstores.
This doesn’t work very well in places where population is sparse, but it’s how Ivan Doig and his wife sold “This House of Sky” until it developed a reputation. Reputation sells books. The Doigs traveled far and wide, developing relationships. It’s a wonderful classic book we wouldn’t know about otherwise.
If you “google” the titles of my books, they may show up on the internet with permission or publishing, maybe pulled off my blog. “Heartbreak Butte” was originally a blog with each entry being a chapter. It’s about teaching on the Blackfeet rez and was too politically hot for any publisher. On the same blog (“Heartbreakbutte.blogspot.com) is “One Windy Day” written in “writer’s room” style by a HB 7th grade class. There is a print version of “One Windy Day” at Lulu.com.
Publishing is not an endorsement of quality, as many people think, but rather a business that makes manuscripts into objects that can be sold. To make their books enticing, the publisher uses a reputation to advertise on the jackets and to coordinate all the ingredients, from the quality of the binding and paper, to the editing and illustrating. They must get money to do this so they are a form of capitalism. They seek profit. Their business includes salesmen who travel and a standing arrangement with libraries.
Formally, “Bronze Inside and Out” was published by the U of Calgary Press as part of a series about Alberta persons of consequence. Bob Scriver qualified because of his relationship with the Glenbow Foundation and the Calgary Stampede. The capital came from a foundation which provided a grant. Only 750 copies were printed and there was no profit. The editors were naive about “cowboy art” and could not cope with the politics. That’s a different blog, not written yet. Since it relates to white entitlement, it may be a book.
I wrote a piece about Bob Scriver to go on Wikipedia. No author is identified so when people find it, they sometimes tell me about it as though it were written by an Important Person. (I’m important to my cats.) The Montana Historical Society was given all of Bob Scriver’s estate, including photo albums I made and all the greeting cards I gave him. When I was going there for research, the employees didn’t connect me to Bob and told me all about his “third wife” as though I were only historical. When they figured it out, they were very nervous because of the fourth wife (the widow, who also died soon after him) and her alliance with a local predatory lawyer. They never helped me, though I have a “box” in their archives.
When I researched the Browning newspapers, I borrowed the historic record on microfilm from the MHS, and viewed them on the machine in the Conrad library, who became very suspicious. DRK and Dorothy Still Smoking used to visit the Glenbow library and take notes from their files. When Rosalyn LaPier (enrolled indigenous) and William Barr (her prof, white) went to research the files in the Browning Museum of the Plains Indian, Barr was allowed but LaPier was not. They were afraid any “Indian” might destroy or steal evidence. In fact, earlier Chinese “cleansing” action, meant that all files about a white person were taken to the dump.
As you can see, writing is full of adventure and danger, complicated and vengeful, not just little old ladies using their own local files in cardboard boxes and scrapbooks. But many people who read my writing are concerned only with nostalgia and reinforcement of their own assumptions. Any contradictions are skipped.
Because I write 1,000 words daily on several threads, I cover a lot of ground and some people remark that when they Google my name comes up again and again. At some point Google itself notified me that they had just changed the name of my email from prairiem on the 3rivers.com website to Montana.prairiemary on Gmail, whether I liked it or not. I cancelled my backup gmail and all other Google accounts except the search engine. I changed my email to mscriver@3rivers.net. This lost some people and broke links inconveniently.
Next Google froze my blogspot blogs. Now they are zombies: I cannot post nor edit nor address comments. Google tried to force me onto one of their blogs. Now I post to Medium.com, which keeps adding features that I can’t understand.
These are some of my zombie blogs, which you can still read, maybe. I can’t access the list anymore.
Strachansontheprairie.blogspot.com
Two are about Alvina Krause, acting professor, and are archived at the Deering Library at Northwestern University.
