Welcome to Elsewhither: yet another blog where a writer writes about writing. My name is Charlie Hills and I'm usually found blogging over at Back to the Fridge. I created this blog due to the increasing number of off-putting off-topic posts over there. (Well, it was either that or write a book, How To Lose Traffic and Alienate Readers.) I officially announced Elsewhither on Friday, August 6, 2010, but if you see a lot of posts prior to that date, it's because I plagiarized a bunch of writing from The Fridge and copied it here.
Elsewhither?
If you've never seen the word elsewhither before, it's because you were born after 1690. It is an archaic form of "elsewhere" and not used all that often, making it an ideal choice for a twenty-first century domain name. Philologistically speaking, the -ither part of such words can be translated to their modern counterparts by swapping -ere for -ither, like so:
hither = here
thither = there
whither = where
I adopted the word for a few reasons. First, for me personally, writing has always been a "somewhere else" sort of place and that's what this blog is. Second, I recently began a story with a working title of Elsewhither so I already had the domain name registered. Lastly and mostly, I just like the sound of it.
And Your Credentials, Sir?
Some of my writing here actually purports to contain advice on writing. The astute reader, upon seeing such advice, will naturally ask, "Who died and made you Ernest Hemingway?" Or, to use different English words: who are you to give out advice on how to write? A just question! For I am not a (real) published author. I do not have a degree in anything remotely related to writing. I am not a certified teacher or tenured professor. But I do know what the passive voice is and why it should generally be avoided. That alone puts me in the top 8.7% of the population, so you could do worse things than listen to me.
But to be perfectly honest and temporarily serious: I'm really writing this blog for me. I'm offering up advice I believe I need to hear from myself. Think of it as group therapy for one. If others find entertainment (or heaven forbid even useful information) by listening in on my private thoughts (which I've ironically posted for the whole world to see) then that's just icing on the cake.
Anyway, I thank you for stopping by. Read a few posts, leave a comment or two, and I just might stop by your neck of the woods on my next trip out into the blogosphere.
