Q: OK, who are you?
A: Rachel Coleman, newspaper refugee, home educator, wife to The Guy Who Forbids Me to Write About Him So I’ll Stop Now, gardener, bread-baker. I love Jesus.
Q: What do you mean, “Out of Print?”
A: I am just barely old enough to remember journalism before computers — those stick-on headlines and long strips of type that you ran through the waxer and lined up on the light table. I love newspapers. I view online media alternately with foreboding (what will happen to the newspapers? They do not exist just so people can recycle them, you know) and relief (it’s so nice to not have a deadline imposed by outside forces). Also, I set up the blog out of desperation, feeling as though I too had “gone out of print” like a second-rate novel a few years after its only printing.
Q: Why?
A: Multiple sclerosis commandeered my walking, reading and typing abilities the day I turned 40. It was kind of like being drop-kicked by your own nervous system. Once the steroids and prayer, bedrest and stubbornness took effect, the first thing I wanted to do was relearn how to type. (The first place I wanted to go was the library, but that took a couple months longer because I had to relearn how to walk.) I’d been newspapering like a madwoman right before the flare-up, and wanted a way to write for other people. You can read more about multiple sclerosis on the Spotted Brain Dispatches page and in the category “Life With MS” on the main page.
Q: So did it work?
A: If you are reading this, yes. As far as the “Drive Internet traffic to your site and make that little hits chart climb ever higher” stuff, I’m afraid I am, so far, a dismal failure. I haven’t learned how to work the system. Yet.
Q: Anything I, the noble Internet Reader, can do to help?
A: Yes! Subscribe for email notifications about my blog updates. And talk to me in the comments section. I like the whole give-and-take aspect of this sort of publication.
Q: Anything else?
A: Thank you for reading. Come back again.
