I spent the entire day yesterday setting up this new blog. I was writing in my journal after a month of inactivity and was feeling that I needed something more to motivate me to write. At first I resurrected BryanMcEntire.com, but I’ve never been one for excessive self-promotion and decided something else would be better. Sword and Paper is derived from the adage ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’, but most of the simple derivations of that phrase were already registered by other aspiring writers. I settled on this name partially because it was available, but also because paper has been the vehicle for writers since writing was invented. Over the past year or so I’ve discovered the tactile pleasure of writing longhand with fountain pens on smooth paper. Since this discovery I’ve written more than the previous two decades combined, and that coupled with my lifelong obsession with swords made it the perfect field for my creative output.
Back in 2003, before Blogspot was purchased by Google, I kept a blog called WheatBurn. It lasted for several years but eventually faded into disuse after I setup BryanMcEntire.com, entered the workforce and settled down. I pulled down BryanMcEntire.com a few years ago after my camera was gathering dust and Flash was murdered by the iPhone. Since then I’ve created several more blogs with the intention of continuing that effort: PaveNature.com. WheatBurn.com. RoughlyCrooked.com. TheRestIsMissing.com. I created logos and websites for all of these, but out of sheer laziness never did anything with them. WheatBurn.com was created with the Ghost blogging platform which I would be using for this website if Globat, my webhost, offered Node.js as an option. But alas, it doesn’t so I’m stuck with WordPress. Ghost appeals to me because it has a minimalist ideal, is focused solely on blogging, and is named after supernatural beings that haunt our world. This is where WordPress started until it became the bloated monstrosity it is today, powering what seems like half of the mom and pop sites on the internet, this one included.
My lifelong goal ever since I won the “best writer” award in the second grade for a story about the old west has been to be a writer. I’ve created lots of little story snippets, but until recently have yet to put dedicated effort into realizing this goal. All the seminars and books on writing I’ve seen tell aspiring authors to build their own brand, to develop an online presence and gather a community of like-minded individuals that share your vision. Although this is one goal of this website, it is a tertiary one. My hope is that this is a place where I can throw my thoughts and hone my writing skills so I can do justice to the stories and characters fighting to escape from my mind.
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