I was asked by someone about a month or so ago if I was going to participate in this years International Webloggers Day? I replied that I’d never even heard of it – being relatively new to the world of blogging in general – let alone being in a position to participate in it? It sounded like a cool idea though so I found out more about it and signed up.

In that time since I have been wondering what the heck to write about when the day finally arrived? After about two weeks though the answer became obvious for me. I would write about the historical importance of weblogs and, indeed, the Internet itself. Believe me when I say that there’s a good chance that what you write today, tomorrow or next year could very well be the basis of study for scholars and historians in a thousand years time. I know it. I’ve seen it happen in other areas and I’ve read about it in many many more.

“But why would that be?” you might ask? “Who the hell would be interested in the stuff I talk about on my blog?” The answer is simple – almost anybody could find what you write interesting in one way or another. It just depends on what you write, who you are, what you may become, what is happening around you and any one of dozens of other things. Though some blogs are better than others for this – primarily blogs with at least some content on them as opposed to one-line entries stating “I have nothing to say today” or “Life sucks! Later!” – most blogs will find their way in history in one way or another. Make no mistake about that! Webpages are cached and saved and information is sorted, cataloged, updated and placed into storage in many different ways and on many mediums by many organizations. Just take a look at The Wayback Machine to see the effects of that happening right at the moment. Save for the full destruction of the entire planet that information will still be there thousands of years from now.

It’ll be there for future historians to study and write about. Famous people and historical events are written and re-written about ad infinitum and will continue to be forever. A hundred years ago people still became famous for the things that they’d done or achieved. Isambard Kingdom Brunnel made cool tunnels, bridges and ships – and laid the Trans-Atlantic cable between Europe and America, once more! William The Conquerer ruled most of the known world at one stage. Leonardo DaVinci was an amazing painter, inventor and did incredibly insightful studies of the human body, and Mozart created some of the most beautiful music imaginable. Now THAT’S achievement!!! In todays “celebrity driven” society a person can easily become famous for just “being” a person or being the son or daughter or friend of someone in particular! They don’t have to actually do anything at all? I mean just look at Kato Kaelin in the O. J. Simpson case or Paris Hilton now? I mean what has Paris ever done to warrant all of the publicity about her? Nuded up and had sex in front of a camera? Yeah well hell, millions of people have done THAT over the years! The media can make or break “celebrities” on a whim, forgoing any real reason there may or may not be for legitimate fame. It doesn’t mean that I have anything against Paris by the way. I’m just trying to get some historical balance on the issue.

Likewise many “ordinary” people have never been written about. Why bother after all, you say? It’s not as if they’ve done anything important at all. Well here’s the point – it’s probably because they’ve never done anything “important” that historians find the life of ordinary, and boring, people so fascinating. I mean there are lot’s of people dissatisfied with George W. Bush and the current administration but the exact reasons behind people dissent isn’t going to show up in the conventional history books, is it? No, it’s going to show up in newspapers, interviews and, more importantly, the BLOGS of the people who are writing about it!

I say “more importantly” because blogs are hardly ever censored in any way. In most cases the “real” media is, due to political correctness, various agendas and libel laws. People who write on blogs, and in private journals before them, tell it how they see it. It doesn’t mean it’s actually true or right, but merely a reflection of what they are feeling at the time. This sort of anecdotal evidence is extremely important to any historian worth his or her salt. This is the voice of the people! The ordinary guy on the street rather than the president or the media. This is the voice of Pliny The Younger in the last days of Pompeii rather than the words of Caesar and his chronicler a hundred miles away – and, hence, it’s VERY important stuff! Historians find this interesting because it’s often the “missing link” when it comes to a full balanced history of an event or the lifestyle of a forgotten peoples.

The fact of the matter is that no-one’s life is truly “boring” in any real sense. Sure, it can be largely uneventful, but that doesn’t mean it’s boring. Most people’s lives are generally uneventful anyway on a day to day basis. Even the biggest celebrities have uneventful days where they sleep, sit by the pool, watch TV, go to the supermarket or spend time with their families. God, virtually EVERYONE does this from time to time!

Right now I’m sitting here on my computer just like every one of you out there. My knees are still blown up to the size of grapefruit and the dogs are sleeping peacefully. I have music playing in the background and I can occasionally hear the TV from the front room. It’s not quite dawn yet and I’ve been designing webpages and crunching code for a while now. You might be in a similar situation in your own home, office, whatever, and doing things that are largely “uneventful”. But what did you do on the weekend? What did you do last month or last year or five years ago? Did you go on a European holiday and see history that’s 1000 years old or more? Did you save someone’s life because of your paramedic skills or because you took that first aid course way back in 1998? Did you eat in a fancy restaurant or win a prize in a competition? Did you see a fantastic movie that so inspired you to want to direct, write, take up painting, increase your CGI computer skills or even become an actor? Did you hear the perfect song that inspired you to act in some way – whether it be starting a band of your own or saving a local park from destruction? Did you fight for what you believe in over in a country where epic battles have been fought, and chronicled, for thousands of years?

The list is endless. Banality or boredom are highly subjective and the truth is that there is no truth on that score. What’s boring to you might not be boring to someone else, and vice versa. I’ve made records and had a best selling book and, to me, that’s pretty damn cool and exciting – but to someone like Madonna or John Grisham it’s “Just another record”……..”Just another book”…….It’s ALL subjective!

I’ve never actually been in a stretched limousine but a lot of people out there have. I think almost every kid who graduates from high school nowadays hires a limousine for the senior prom! I’ve never given birth and I will never truly know what it’s like to do so, but approximately half the population out there at least has the opportunity to do so! I’ve never had to flee my country of birth because of war or the persecution of my religious beliefs but many people out there have. That kind of stuff is in NO WAY boring AT ALL!

And how many movies and books – good and bad – have been made where nothing really amazing happens in them? Indeed one of my favorite movies of recent years “The Cider House Rules” is basically about nothing much at all. Some orphan kid who gets a job picking apples and falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend. Big deal! Lot’s of people have done that kinda thing! But wasn’t the story almost perfect? Wasn’t it well written and well acted and didn’t it hold your attention for a couple of hours or so? I know it wouldn’t have for some people but I also know that others loved it. To some it was boring but to others it wasn’t at all. That’s how subjective boredom is!

So next time you’re sitting there writing your blog and thinking that you must have the most boring existence on the planet and that no-one will actually be interested in anything you think, do or write about then take heed – it’s NOT boring! It’s just YOU and WHO YOU ARE! A person just like everyone else. A person with very legitimate and interesting views, ideas, dreams and beliefs.

Someone with a story to tell….

The original idea for the book came from Dominique Falla, from an old game she used to play as a kid, in which she could control the weather by turning the knobs on her bed (or something like that?). We both then developed the concept of the story from that original idea.

There’s lot’s of “in” jokes (the cat is named Willard after Willard Scott of NBC and the children are “Hail” and “Ray”) in the story which is about a weather “forecaster” and her weather creating machine. When things go wrong they go wrong BIG TIME and it needs the combined efforts of everyone involved to get things back on track again.

The story went through quite a few rewrites. I think it was me who originally wrote it but both Dominique and I changed passages where we saw fit. All of the pencil drawings for the mock up were done by Dominique.

The book “plates” themselves are 3 dimensional and made out of mdf (medium density fiberboard), solid wood and wood veneers. Then each part is spray painted – along with the background – and assembled to make the complete picture. Because it’s done in low relief everything needs to be foreshortened, which makes things more difficult.

This book differs slightly from Woodlore in that Woodlore had illustrations (on plywood) that were framed with wood veneers and solid wood pieces. Weather Or Not is entirely 3D and spray painted instead. The finished artwork will then be photographed for printing.

Now the actual mock up itself has been done for a while – in fact it was made ready for the Bologna Book Fair sometime around 1997 or so, from memory? Bologna is THE book fair for children’s books and publishers from all over the world come every year to see what’s new and upcoming in children’s books. This is where, we were told, Chronicle Books expressed interest in Dominique’s and my work. Unfortunately nothing much has come from that as yet (not that we chased it up, quite frankly. We both had so much going on that it kinda fell by the wayside.)

The style of the book is based on a funky 1950′s style – all angular and with weird cartoon-like perspectives. In fact we were originally inspired by an obscure computer animated short called “Not Without My Handbag” which we saw at an animation conference in 1995. I think we wanted to get as far away from the Woodlore look as we could – not because we didn’t like it but because we wanted to do something very different. We also managed to do a television advertisement for Kraft Macaroni Cheese using the same style. I still have some of the props for the ad upstairs but, alas, I’ve been cleaning up this place and they will soon be trashed – but not without a last photo or two!

As I no longer have Dominique to paint the pieces and the background (she now lives in another state and is far too busy with other projects to work on this one) I need to teach myself “artistic” spray painting. I think I’ll do well though as I’m already a wiz with a spray can (albeit spraying small wooden boxes with clear coat rather than colored – but that’s another story).

I’ll try to remember to take some pictures of the work in progress as I’m doing it. It’s a very slow process though so don’t expect anything too soon!

This story is inspired by a review of Woodlore which described some of the rhyming couplets as little more than “corny doggerel”. I thought it was a great name for a character in a book and vowed that if the book ever got published I would invite the reviewer to the launch of it and possibly even feel compelled to give him a commission for the idea.! In my mind it’s better not to be too precious about what reviewers might say about your work. Life’s too short to get caught up in that!

“THE TALE OF CORN E. DOGGEREL” – SAMPLE TEXT

High up in the mountains, through the forest think with trees
Beyond the ancient mill, whose blades rock gently in the breeze
And further still, the stream with waters crystal to the stare
There lived a horrid creature, whose screams would fill the air.

No one had ever seen it, though the tales of it were rife
There were always those, who knew of some, who’d got themselves in strife
To nearby towns and villages, the stories quickly spread
For the beast upon the mountainside, filled common folk with dread.

Some thought the monster had three heads, that swung and lashed about
Others said the beast could breathe out fire through it’s snout
And then there were believers who would swear that it could fly
(But since no-one had seen it, this was hard to quantify).

Not everyone was frightened of the legends and the lore
There was, in fact, one character who found it all a bore
A dashing young inventor, and a poet laureate
His name was Corn E. Doggerel, the local village vet.

Most folks called him Corn Dog, (which is obvious, of course)
And he was well regarded as a valuable resource
He helped the sick and injured, for a very modest fee
And often would not charge at all, which was an irony.

Now Corn Dog was a cheerful soul, who knew a thing or two
But he was always waxing lyrical, as poets often do
He’d sometimes talk in riddles which nobody understood
And simply didn’t act the way a normal person should.

Often he’d collect the things that other folk threw out
Like cogs and wheels and bits of steel – all useful stuff, no doubt
He’d take it all back to his home, and no-one ever knew
Just what became of all the junk that Corn Dog would accrue.

Corn Dog was, by all accounts, a popular young chap
Who dressed in brightly coloured clothes, and wore a funny cap
He got on well with everyone, and he was well revered
But there was just one thing that people thought was really weird.

You see it was a well known fact to everyone in town
That Corn Dog lived up in the hills, upon the very crown
And many folks had wondered why, to say the very least
In all that time upon the hill, he’d never seen the beast!

Copyright © 1995
Cameron Miller

But then I changed my mind….

I thought “Fug it! If you’re gonna send a pen here without realizing that I’ve been living here for seven years now then that’s your problem, not mine! I’m keeping it – even though my name is not “AVM Acrylic Visual Merchandising”.

So then if you’re gonna send me a second pen without realizing that the first one went AWOL without generating any sales whatsoever, then that’s also your problem. Do you guys actually make money or are you a charity organization?

I should add that I’m very thankful that you sent these pens to my address. They’re cool. They look cool, they’re comfortable to hold – what with their rubberized finger grips and all – and the latest one looks like a kinda Soyuz retro rockety type dark anodized silvery type cool thing. Well maybe not so “Soyuz-y” as such, but definitely kinda Soviet style rocket look-alike. I think so anyway.

I will use both of these pens to write cool handwritten passages for future books, flesh out the bones of future book characters as well as plotlines and ideas for future works. I will undoubtedly also use these pens for shopping lists, notes to my darlin’ (the dogs can’t read so they’re no good for them), signing checks and circling which TV shows I want to watch, record etc. from the TV guide.

Once again, thank you.