Welcome to Gully Brook Press

The website of freelance writer Gina
Giuliano

Friday.
I am procrastinating; it is midterm week and I have a ton of essays, etc. to grade. I hold myself to a quick turn around time (and if I delay at all it never fails that I get a bunch of emails from students, some in a panic that I didn't get their assignment, others demanding to know when I will have the grading done). I don't remember asking professors anything like that when I was an undergraduate. I don't know if I seem approachable (I am surprised every semester over the number of students who address me by my first name), if the electronic communication mode has made students more comfortable with asking somewhat pushy questions, if times have changed in another way, or if other students were pestering professors during my undergraduate years, it was just me and my friends who were too timid.

So, since I have cleared time to focus on student evaluation, I was frantically trying to find something, anything, to justify a delay - I am on the one day off after two treadmilling days cycle, so I can't use that - and there on the right of the screen was Check out: Blogger Pro. Hey, I'll investigate that. So I did, the features are enticing - but I thought, who cares? I like this idea, the online journal thing. But I like journals, whether online or not. The disadvantage of this form is that I always jot down some of my best ideas in a little notebook while waiting somewhere on a bench, observing the world, far from being plugged in. Also, a long time ago I used my journal to vent, really vent, uncensored. Afterwards, I threw out some of the pages, thinking, I can't save this junk. I know there is a strong, perhaps dominant, school of thought that goes, don't censor yourself in your writing, and I understand where that is coming from, but once I achieved adulthood, I thought about the diary as a historical record, and I decided I wouldn't write too many things in my journal that I would mind someone reading. I have kept that structure in the years since, and it has worked out for me. But the transfer of that little spiral bound book to the world of digits means, I think for me anyway, an additional layer of self-censoring, and that is something I am not sure is good.

On the other hand, this is more public, not a secret, can one really be a writer without a potential audience?, and it is already typed in case I want to copy/paste - better than transcribing scribbles. And so far, I haven't had any archive loss. Funny item, one of those circulating emails:

Subject: Our Diet
(A) The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than
the British or Americans.
(B) On the other hand, the French eat a lot of fat and also suffer fewer
heart attacks than the British or Americans.
(C) The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks
than the British or Americans.
(D) The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and also suffer
fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.
(E) Conclusion: Eat & drink what you like. It's speaking English that
kills you