by Richard Skinner

Still getting this place organized… One thing I noticed yesterday, in between grilling, watching the neighbors trying to burn their houses down (they failed, we’ve had way too much rain for that lately), and generally trying to enjoy the two hundred and fortieth birthday of our nation – was that my real name was almost nowhere to be found on this here blog.

Urp. Yet another mistake to be corrected – right fricking now. Unless I want to be known as “That guy, you know, he writes the blog, what are his books again?”

Which issue reminded me of another little bit of “coming out” that I have had on the list for when I went public. My long-standing moniker for social media purposes.

Now, I’ve used the moniker “Reality Observer” for more than ten years now. I first established it when I was working for other people. When you work for (and with) other people, you do not want to have any association to be easily found between yourself and them; no blow back on your personal opinions should ever splash over onto them. Actually, in this fallen world of ours, you normally don’t want you to be associated with you – such can cripple any desire for a career. As far too many young people have painfully found out these days…

For an author, though, the situation is somewhat different. No matter what you do, if you become even moderately successful, someone will take the time to do some real digging. There are those out there that positively delight in such digging, and then “outing” the author to achieve their own fifteen seconds of internet fame.

So – those of you who know the frequent commenter called “Reality Observer” (or, in some cases where I typoed, “RealityObserver”) – yep, this is a full confession that that person is me, Richard Skinner, wannabe writer, aka “Writing Observer.” I’m going to keep that moniker, though, as there are many people that only know me by it, and creating confusion is not my objective here. Some of the more “general” media I am cutting down on, in any case, although I’ll still be active in the writing blogs and forums that I frequent. I really don’t have the time any longer – and, this being a Presidential election year, and one that has shaped up to be the nastiest one since Lincoln vs. Douglas – there are far too many monkeys on those forums, with far too large a supply of poo to fling around.

Now for an administrative note. Just before this post comes up, I will have finally enabled comments. As I explained, I wanted the blog to stabilize a bit before I did so (translation, get my most egregious mistakes fixed first). There is a minor change to the “House Rules” – so whether you have already read that page or not, please take a look now. The change actually is only to note that the first comment will have to be approved before you can have at me – that is a policy common to most bloggers, as it keeps the cleaning of spam to a minimum. Ah, the blog roll is also now up, in its first incarnation.

So far as I know right now, the next post should come out on schedule this Sunday – I’m collecting together my various notes and timelines about my adventures in producing a halfway (quarterway? less?) decent cover for the first Tales By The Road story.