Happy Labor Day, Gentle Reader!

With the launch of the Intergalactic Academy, I’ve been struggling a little bit with what to do with this blog. Oh, don’t worry–I wouldn’t dream of abandoning you. Still, as time has gone on, my writing has become more . . . diffuse, spreading to different corners of the Internet like YA Highway and Strange Horizons. As I’m now reviewing both at the Intergalactic Academy and Strange Horizons, phoebenorth.com will no longer be the home for all of my reviews. I still plan on cross-posting my goodreads reviews which are not published elsewhere here, but that won’t be with quite the frequency that it once was.

I’m hoping to use this space generally for more personal blogging and photography, such as my blog post on Hurricane Irene. I used to do this kind of thing a lot back in the glory days of sites such as diaryland and livejournal (no, I won’t tell you my usernames there), and I do miss it. It won’t be on any sort of regular schedule, most likely–rather whenever the muse decides to visit. And I’ll probably still sometimes post about writing and the writing world here, too, because, let’s face it, I love talking about that stuff.

All of this has been complicated–or maybe simplified?–be the advent of google+. I’m hardly using twitter or tumblr or even facebook at all these days. It wasn’t something I really planned for–google+ just has easily encompassed the uses I had for all of the above services, in one interface. Though I do use my circles for management and some filtering, most general life updates (which once would have gone on twitter or facebook) or cross-posting of nifty stuff from the web (which is what I was using tumblr for) is now going there, as well as links to my writing around the internet, almost as soon as it happens. So if you need obsessive Phoebe-updates, follow me there.

Though I’m hardly using my personal twitter, I’ll continue to post links to my blog posts (since those are automated), as well as links to my writing in other places. I’m also now tweeting sci-fi and science related links at the Intergalactic Academy twitter account. Those won’t be personal links–more a way to put my 300+ blog subscriptions to good use and share items of interest with other sci-fi fans.

I don’t really want to post every piece of writing here in real-time, though. That feels clunky and obnoxious. Still, if you’re reading here, I figure that means you actually want to read stuff by Phoebe North, right? So once a month I’ll link to places where my writing appeared. The more substantial of these (reviews and articles) will also be posted to my bibliography pages.

So here’s where my writing appeared in August:

• On August 21st, I posted a guide for YA authors on submitting short fiction at YA Highway.
• On August 24th, I reviewed A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness at Strange Horizons.

So. I think that’s it. Long story short: links to my own writing on twitter (but not much else); sci-fi tweeting at the Intergalactic Academy twitter account; various reviews and articles at the Intergalactic Academy, YA Highway, and Strange Horizons; personal blogging and writing about writing and some reviewing here, at phoebenorth.com with once-monthly links to writing elsewhere; and, finally, assorted random STUFF, plus links to all of the above on google+. And I’m not really using tumblr or facebook at all, though they’re, like, there. Sorry–something’s gotta give.

Phew. Any questions?

Hi guys!

You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet for the last month. That’s not because I suddenly developed a social life (ha!), but because I’ve undertaken a new enterprise with my droogie Sean. Today, we’re launching the Intergalactic Academy, a blog specializing in YA sci-fi. Today’s just an introductory post; we’re getting started in earnest on Monday, but head on over and check it out! And don’t forget to subscribe via RSS reader or Google Friend Connect. You know, if that’s your thing. No pressure or anything.

I have guest post up on Kody Keplinger’s blog today on sex positivity in YA. Incidentally, if you haven’t been following Kody’s blog lately, you really should be. It’s been buckets of illuminating awesomeness.

Welcome to the spiffy new redesigned phoebenorth.com. I’d make apologies for not blogging for the past week or so, but I’ve been spending a lot of time putting lots of love and hardwork into making this website look both professional and like an awesomely space-themed Trapper Keeper, so no regrets!

Choosing to jump ship from my old blog wasn’t an easy one. I’ve been writing over there since 2007, (sporadically) through my entire tenure of Gainesville residency, and so, in many ways, I was pretty attached to the little space I carved out for myself there. It started as a joke between my husband and I–he’d take pictures of me eating with his cell phone camera, I’d mug and wink, he’d joke about starting a for-pay site for pervy dudes who wanted to watch me eat. When I decided to start my first (vaguely) comprehensive personal site, I wasn’t yet ready to write under my own name and the URL he suggested–phoebeeating.com–was just too good to let go.

That’s not to say it was without problems. Because, when it came down to it, I’ve never been a food blogger, even if I do occasionally write about food. And so I’d try to explain my site to people, and they’d be (understandably) confused. It also got a little tiring, after three years, to be known as “the girl who eats”–to have to mug for the camera in the middle of a meal. Guys, this is why it’s a bad idea to get a tongue-in-cheek tattoo. Three years of any joke can kill the humor, much less a lifetime of it.

It also posed problems when I first decided to start up phoebenorth.com. There’s something just plain messy about having two domains, particularly when you use one more frequently, but house your email at the other. It’s confusing. It’s reader-unfriendly. It’s not great for self-promotion or marketing or any of those things.

Speaking of self-promotion and marketing and all of those things, when I was considering this switch, author Johnny Dale sent me a link to this blog post on author Jody Hedlund’s blog. Basically, the jist is, authors who have never blogged before hear they’re supposed to and also think it might get them a book deal and they’re all like, blog?, I can has blog?

The funny thing is, blogging has never been a question for me. I’ve been journaling online in one form or another since 2001–egads, nearly a decade. I’ve gone from opendiary to diaryland to livejournal to livejournal to blogs under my own domain name, and while my style has shifted from something resembling normal teen girl journaling to sparse, artsy fartsy poetics to the more conversational tone I prefer today, it’s something that I can’t imagine not doing.

For me, blogging is primarily a way of conversing with people. Let’s face it; I love to hear myself talk, and even if I didn’t blah blah blahg, I’d still write this kind of stuff for myself. But sharing it with others gives my thoughts depth and breadth that they wouldn’t have otherwise. You guys–my audience–challenge me. You keep me on my toes. You help me think better and more sharply about the things that I care about. Nowhere was the integral nature of blogging in my life better demonstrated than when I posted my teasers for Seas Run Dry–weekly sharing of my work meant that my first-draft writing was better considered, better edited . . . just plain better!

So that’s why I blog–not for promotional or marketing purposes, but because sharing myself with the internet helps me to be a better version of myself. It draws me out of the ivory fortress of my own mind and forces me to consider my audience of their perceptions of me. In short, blogging helps me be me.

And so I want my blog to reflect me, too. For years, through all of these online journals, I haven’t been myself, but a constructed self–someone else, either “jacklovesyoutoo” or “andnothingon” or “going2georgia” or “sixcylinders” or “phoebeeating,” someone intent on projecting an ironic, self-conscious image to the world. I was the 16-year-old girl who loved Fight Club, or the 22-year-old who loved The Mountain Goats. I was not the girl who stayed up late watching Star Trek with her dad. These people were kind of me, but they weren’t really me, not quite. They were aspects of me, specifically shaped to fit a certain image. And that image, often, was divorced from the real truth–that I’m not really all that cool, that I’m a big ol’ dork.

Hence the new name–and honestly, hence the star-spangled Trapper Keeper look, too. The banner at the top of the page has stars in it not just because stars are awesome but because, in sixth grade, I started signing my name with a little star on the end. In my head, I wasn’t just “Phoebe North”–I was “Phoebe Northstar!” I know, I know, that’s incredibly dorky. But I don’t care. Because, as I say in the biography section of this site, the past few years have been a return to form for me. I’ve been getting back in touch with my true self, my dorky, unabashed self, the one who loves aliens and stars and laser beams right down to the bottom of her heart.