Category Archives: About this Blog

WordPress Desktop test post (and if it works, an update!)

I downloaded once again the WordPress Desktop ‘app’ to see if it works better than it did when I posted this rant:Out with WordPress Desktop

If you can read this, then they fixed whatever bug that prevented me from posting to my blogs. (I’m still going to use Mars Edit to write; the WP Desktop is useful in adminning/managing the site, cjhecking stats, etc.)

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Alive for another year!

This blog remains alive for another year. (Seriously? You call this, “Alive?” ONE POST in the past year?!?!?!)

I almost terminated it last year due to inactivity along with no clear idea as to what to do with it. Well, I had some ideas, I just never followed through with them. (Turning it into a newsy, opinion blog was never one of the ideas. Too much noise out there as it is, no one needs to hear more of it from me.) But my hosting provider offered a coupon equal to the domain registration fee, and I took it and as a result whoever reads this got treated to one post about dead squirrels.

This year they did the same, but I waited a few days until I paid for the whole hosting account as well as the domain fees for Sober Catholic and my wife’s site Artist4God. And the coupon disappeared. So. That takes care of that. But then I heard a little voice saying ‘Try Customer Srervice Chat. Ask what happened, and maybe they’ll give it to you.” I did and they did and here this thing is for another year, and perhaps beyond.

Why? Good question.

This has got to be the oldest continuing blog with no sustained, continual purpose. It’s even had several name changes.  Dribs and drabs of direction and points, but….

I was going to download the posts and transfer some to Sober Catholic, perhaps edited, and in looking over a bunch I thought, “Darn, I’m good sometimes!” (Tongue, inserted in cheek. Wink.)  So, I’ll ponder and plan. (Again.)  (Oh, I think I had the idea at one point to turn this into my primary “social media” outlet, rather than use Facebook, et al. Use this and reshare where needed. That’s worth revisiting.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Thoughts on social media

I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about my use of social media (Facebook, etc.). It has come to my sad attention that it distracts me to the point of not getting enough done with regard to my blogging and fiction writing.

I have insufficient discipline. (No freakin’ kiddin’. Ya think?)

Or, even if I have the discipline, (name one day, dude) I do not use it effectively.

For example, I have something interesting to say. (Hey, it happens.) I post it on Facebook or wherever rather than on here or perhaps Sober Catholic. What’s up with that? These blogs cost money, I should use them rather than free platforms. Especially if and when the platforms collapse and become defunct (Remember Friendster or MySpace? At least, their initial versions?) all your stuff disappears into the digital void. And now something called MeWe is making the techie news.

The potential for collapse is an issue on another front. I follow, to the best of my ability, the ideals of Distributism. One of the fundamental principles of that very Catholic economic and social philosophy is that you own the means of production. “Own it or be owned.” The platform on which you share your “content” is a means of production.

I do not own my accounts on the various social media platforms. Someone else does and they use the “content” to make money. Fair enough, that’s the cost of a “free” platform. I do own this blog and Sober Catholic. (Well, actually I rent the domain names and the servers the blogs are hosted on. But essentially it’s the closest thing to ownership, short of building your own web servers and hosting your “content” on your own machines.)

Recently I ran across several chapters in the Imitation of Christ that seemed to be speaking of social media. I know the concept didn’t exist 500 years ago when Thomas a Kempis wrote his masterwork, but as is typical with Catholic inspirational works, it is timeless and applicable everywhere, everytime.

So:

Book 1 Chapter 8 “Do not open your heart to every man, but discuss your affairs with one who is wise and who fears God. Do not keep company with young people and strangers. Do not fawn upon the rich, and do not be fond of mingling with the great. Associate with the humble and the simple, with the devout and virtuous, and with them speak of edifying things.”

Book 1 Chapter 10: “Shun the gossip of men as much as possible, for discussion of worldly affairs, beven though sincere, is a great distraction inasmuch as we are quickly ensnared and captivated by vanity.

Many a time I wish that I had held my peace and had not associated with men. Why, indeed, do we converse and gossip among ourselves when we so seldom part without a troubled conscience? We do so because we seek comfort from one another’s conversation and wish to ease the mind wearied by diverse thoughts. Hence, we talk and think quite fondly of things we like very much or of things we dislike intensely. But, sad to say, we often talk vainly and to no purpose; for this external pleasure effectively bars inward and divine consolation.
Therefore we must watch and pray lest time pass idly.

When the right and opportune moment comes for speaking, say something that will edify.”

Courtesy: Catholic Treasury

There are a few other nice snippets in a few later chapters, as well as Scripture quotes that can be interpreted as cautioning us on the use of social media. Truth be told, any spiritual wisdom or advice on interactions with other people can me attributed to social media usage. (Wow, insightful.) But the simple fact that social media empowers people to share their viewpoints with audiences in the thousands (millions, even if you discover that lucky ‘viral’ quality!) causes me to consider its use.

This post is odd considering that just a little while ago I invited people to Connect with me on MeWe! So I have to include that in my cogitations. Incidentally, the mere fact that I feel the need to share with you my thoughts on this is perhaps part of the poison of social media. Like this is interesting to you. At least I don’t post photos of my breakfast nor share “check-ins” of where I am. 😉

So. What to do what to do how to discipline. Cogitations for my pondermatic. Sundays and Mondays are my days off; I can blog when I am not attending Latin Masses and gardening or going on daytrips with the missus. Posts can be scheduled for later in the week if needed. I can spent worknights writing and maybe dabble in more blogging.

I can try restricting social media for once-in-a while checkins. “No Facebooking or MeWeing until I blog or write!”

😐

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

In Exile

“In Exile.”

Yes, I’ve renamed this blog. Again. Since this blog has near zero readers, I doubt it will be noticed, much less cared about. 😉 The title is similar to the “In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him” title from a few years back, only more manageable. 🙂

Why the change? A title other than “Paul Sofranko’s Blog” has the opportunity to bring a greater focus to whatever it is I’m doing here. “In Exile” fits as I do feel as if I am in exile, far from my true home which is Heaven. I hope to get there someday.

“In Exile” also fits a personal feeling or “self-identification” (to borrow an abused pop-psych term popular nowadays.) I never feel like I fit into any group I ever belong to. I alluded to that here. Whether it’s family, school, work or whatever, I always felt on the outside looking in. (Church has been an exception – Church in general, not parish.) Sometimes the feeling was so intense years ago that I felt that I was the only person really alive; everyone else was a product f my imagination (or God’s). There’s even a word for that, “solipsism.”

So, “In Exile” feeds off of that. It’s also dramatic and literary.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Sundays and Mondays

A few days ago I blogged about a neat exercise for blogging daily. Entitled “getting stoned,” it involved little bits of writing, be it poetry, haiku, or random thoughts on a specific…thing.

I changed my mind, having found it distracting. I was taking too much time trying to think of stuff to post for it.

{{{sigh}}}

Upon pondering this I decided that I will instead refocus or repurpose the whole idea.

This isn’t my main blogging effort, that “honor” goes to Sober Catholic, which today celebrates its ninth anniversary. This might become my main, or co-equal blog to SC if/when my published works ever grow beyond the two little devotional books I have.

More {{{sighing}}}

So. The refocusing and repurposing. Not sure if either term applies as this blog wasn’t too keen on being focused or purposed. What I am going to do with this is blog here primarily on Sundays and Mondays. These are my two days off and I should have time to gather myself here and write about something. No guarantees, of course (of course!) but I’ll think of stuff. Perhaps more haiku or other poetry. Maybe those random thoughts on random things, taken from random notes scribbled over the week. Maybe novel updates on how it’s going (maybe first on what it’s about?)

We’ll see. I admit to struggling to determine a purpose for this “personal” blog. But at least attempting to commit to putting something here is a step towards giving this place a purpose and a focus.

Later! (For whomever reads this 😉 )

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Sticker shock

I am at a turning point or crossroads in my blogging. I received an email from our website’s hosting service and it was an offer to renew soon before the price goes up.

I had mistakenly assumed that the renewal option was for the price we had last paid for hosting. I was unawares that the cost had gone up to almost double.

Momentary panic-stricken fretting as to whether it’s worth to keep on doing this ensued. “This” as regarding this particular blog? Not really, as I don’t blog here much for now; the potential uses for this blog were probably mostly in the future. But my wife and I have four sites. The hosting is through BlueHost, and they offer competitive packages versus the rest and they excel at one thing: offering multiple domain names per account. This enables us to host all four of our sites through them. My primary blogging effort, Sober Catholic, is worth the cost (at least my wife thinks so 😉 ) and will thus go on. As it won’t reduce costs to quit this blog, this will continue, too.

However, the doubling of the hosting costs did bring to the forefront of my conscience one thing. How serious am I at all this? One good thing about money is that it is a great motivator. One bad thing about money is that it is a great motivator. Money is the motivator for too many things.

So as the old saying goes, “It is time to fish or cut bait.” If we are to pay the hosting fees now as well as the domain name fees later before they expire, I have to make this worthwhile. I have to use this more to justify the costs. I know I have said countless times before (mostly on Sober Catholic) about “blogging more often,” but that was a battle between myself and an inner demon, discipline. And in those battles the consequences were mostly interior ravages and self-esteem issues. But now an element from the Real World has entered the fray. Money.

I will also explore ways to “monetize” this thing. And with that goes more blogging on it as monetization efforts are pointless unless there’s activity to draw people.

The turning point. Or crossroads. Continuing to plug away.

(Donations accepted, please see the PayPal link up above. If you’re amongst the people who donated in June 2013 when we were last up for hosting renewal, you needn’t contribute again.)

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

In the Land of My Exile…

I might be doing it again. Changing the name of this blog. Oh, no. How whacked is that? 😉

I’ve been thinking, and now is a good time for this before this blog gets really noticed. It’s not as if I publicize it beyond automatic feed distribution to Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Twitter and my other two blogs. I don’t really do anything to make it well known. So for the time being, while it’s “finding its way” as my primary blog to yammer about writing, reading, and whatever else that may cross my mind and possibly motivate a blog post, now is a good period to continue contemplating its title.

I may revisit an old one. The previous title was “In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him,” which was from the Old Testament’s Book of Tobit (13:6). I felt that was fitting. This place (the country I live in on the planet it sits on) is not my permanent home, nor my true home. Heaven is. (Well, “permanent” if I make it there…) “And to “praise Him” is something we believers all should be doing, in our prayers and meditations, in our words and works, in the way we live. We are in “exile” here, just passing through this transient place, on a pilgrimage to where we’re meant to be.

As I mentioned in this post, I, Blog, I rejected “In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him” as being a little pretentious, at least for me. But what if I shortened it…

Now, “In the Land of My Exile…” is still somewhat Biblical, but not overly so (not that being “Biblical” bothers me). But with the ellipsis at the end, it adds an air of mystery. It just hangs there. What exile? What land? Where’s home? What does this mean? Is this just another idiot blowhard pundit pretending to be profound or literary in their self-examinations and introspections, as if anyone really cares?

It also is kinda science-fictiony/fantasyish, which is somewhat along the lines of the fiction I’m slogging through. The current novel I’m working on, as well as another work set in the same place with some of the same characters (see It wants to be a novel, but perhaps later) are more like “contemporary fiction with fantasy elements grafted on.”

I was thinking of “The Blog With No Name,” and have three blogrolls entitled “The Good,” “The Bad,” and “The Ugly.” Or maybe they’d be just groupings of “important” posts. I can also have a picture of me in a wide-brimmed hat for profile picture and favicon. But I quickly dismissed that idea.

So, like I said before, “Don’t come here looking for profound, insightful commentary on current events, Catholic or secular”, but I may take a look about the land of my exile and beyond, see what I see about me and write about it. Could be deep, could be something you’d rather print out and use as birdcage liner or do-it-yourself cat litter.

It’s still “Paul Sofranko’s Blog” regardless of the title. I read somewhere that a writer “has to” have a website/blog to “engage” people and “showcase” their stuff.

So…

  • my primary blog to yammer about writing, reading, and whatever else that may cross my mind and possibly motivate a blog post
  • take a look about the land of my exile and beyond, see what I see about me and write about it.
  • “contemporary fiction with fantasy elements grafted on.”

Hmmm…. a title to encompass all that…

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

I, Blog

For a blog that’s supposed to be my “main” online journal, this place doesn’t get a whole lotta love. I’m a writer, and writers are “supposed to” have a website or blog or some sort of online presence. Granted, as a writer I only have two books published and those are selfies, but there’s more to come! I always figured that with the passage of time and writing success (or effort), this place will see more activity.

Or maybe not. Whatever, I decided to do some geeking around with the site (notice that I haven’t called it by name, yet).

For starters, the “name.” I figured I’ll simplify matters and just call it “Paul Sofranko’s Blog.” It’s short, and to the point. I’m Paul Sofranko, and this is my blog. Of course, I have others, but those are specialized, “niche” blogs. (Links are in the Page tabs up top, below the title of this place.)

“Paul Sofranko’s Blog” isn’t very imaginative, but it’s less pretentious than previous names: “Writer for God,” “In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him.” “Paul Sofranko Dot Net” might have served again, but it’s just a notch higher than a minimalist, simplistic title I was looking for. 😉

The purpose, such as there is one, of “Paul Sofranko’s Blog” will not change; still a place for me to post stuff on writing, reading and whatever miscellaneous ramblings that serve as my interests and that won’t fit into my two niche blogs.

Don’t come here looking for profound, insightful commentary on current events, Catholic or secular. There are plenty of blogs for that written by people who have the time to work out such posts for online publication. Such writings, for me, take time away from the fiction efforts I am trying to work with, as well as other writing and blogging work. I know my strengths and limitations, and I prefer to focus my thoughtful efforts where they’re best capable of being useful. Although I do reserve the right to do that here when the impulse occurs. But I have a full-time job that has nothing to do with writing or blogging for a living, and other personal responsibilities and commitments. In other words there’s a nice life that’s mine and it happens!

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

In the Land of My Exile I Praise Him…

I’ve renamed this blog. Why? because I thought it was a little conceited to name it after myself, even though it is mine and is intended to be “my home on the web,” for general “woolgathering, sharing and writing.”

The new name is from the Old Testament Book of Tobit, Chapter 16, part of verse 6:

Tobit 13:6

“When you turn back to him with all your heart, to do what is right before him, Then he will turn back to you, and no longer hide his face from you. So now consider what he has done for you, and praise him with full voice. Bless the Lord of righteousness, and exalt the King of the ages. In the land of my exile I praise him, and show his power and majesty to a sinful nation. “Turn back, you sinners! do the right before him: perhaps he may look with favor upon you and show you mercy.”

(Via USCCB.)

As a faithful Catholic who reads the Bible, I fully understand that life on Earth is a life in exile. Our true home is Heaven, and that land is where we trudge towards on our daily journey.

As a writer and blogger, I seek to employ my talents, whatever they are, to Praise the Lord. He gave me what talents I possess, and therefore I hope to use them to glorify Him.

Hence the name of this blog.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

Official Launch Day tomorrow

Official launch day for this site is tomorrow, Sept 1st, 2012!!! No prizes, balloons or anything. Just felt like posting.

Are you a creative Catholic? "The Catholicpunk Manifesto" is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)