Return of the Prizblog
In March of 2005, using a generic blogspot.com site, I launched the Prizblog, to share with the world all of my thoughts on topics largely mundane and inconsequential to anyone who didn’t know me. That blog ran for nearly two years, and during that time I did what I consider some of the best writing of my life.
But I also misused the platform, and got myself into some hot water at work, and even in the media. Convinced that the platform had taken me as far as it could, I ended the blogging experiment. The whole thing just became more trouble than it was worth.
Since I stopped writing the Prizblog in March of 2007, I started writing a column in the Newton TAB called “Speakin’ Out.” It started in the fall of 2007 and ran through this past spring. In the meantime, I became involved with Setti Warren’s campaign for Mayor of Newton. As a direct result of that involvement, I was informed by the TAB’s editors that I could write about anything but the mayoral election. That decision was based on their concept of fairness – they didn’t want me filling their Op-Ed page with Setti puff-pieces every week for 6 months. I get that. But that was also never my intention. I also had no intention of writing a watered-down “Speakin’ Out” that ostensibly ignored the most important mayoral election in the city in over a decade. So, I put the column on indefinite hiatus.
That decision, however, left me in an even worse spot – no platform for my writing. Hence, the Return of the Prizblog. Thirty months since the first Prizblog met its end, my life is a little more in focus, as will be the contents of this blog. The prizblog will dwell mostly on the political and legal topics of the day. Gone will be the video game and movie review my close friends enjoyed. Sorry, fellas. We’ll always have facebook.
I intend this space to contain everything I probably would have submitted to the TAB editors. The added benefit of doing it this way is obviously complete editorial control of my work, and no pesky 800 word limits. The downside, obviously, is that I lack the circulation of the Newton TAB. But then again, judging by how many of those things reside in the puddles dotting Newton sidewalks every week, I’ll probably end up reaching the same people doing it this way.
So, enjoy. Thanks for reading, and check in again when I finally post the Speakin’ Out column the TAB refused to print.
- Ed
