It's Been Three Years
It’s been three years since I started Papyrus Rampant! Thank you to all my 1100+ loyal subscribers, thank you to all my readers, and thank you to all my commenters. I keep saying it in every one of these anniversary posts, but it’s still true: you're the ones who keep me coming back to write posts week after week.
I have several drafts already written, and a number of ideas beyond that. Worldcon gave me several more ideas about story that I'd like to blog about here, and I'm definitely planning to keep up my American Revolution series.
Looking over what I've written lately, I noticed a couple months ago that I've been talking less about the essence of story and storytelling in general. I think that's mostly because I've said what I have to say about my view of story as a whole. So, any new posts would have to stem from new thoughts I got or aspects of my view of stories that I hadn't consciously realized before.
... And that's exactly what happened with Worldcon: the panels there gave me new ideas about how storytelling works, and - where I disagreed with them - illuminated new aspects of my ideas that I hadn't yet thought to write about. So, you're going to get some more posts there!
(I’ve also got some fiction-writing ideas inspired by Worldcon; I’m not sure where they’ll go, but hopefully somewhere?)
On another note, most of my history blogging lately has been related to the American Revolution. I do regret that somewhat; there's more I do want to talk about (as I've been footnoting occasionally.) July's post on the Spanish Armada <> was a conscious effort to write more outside the American Revolution. I don't have particular plans there, but maybe I'll be writing more on history? There's more I want to say about the Cold War, the Roman Empire, and so much more.
If you have any areas of history you're particularly eager for me to write about, please let me know!
And also - anything else you want to say about Papyrus Rampant?
If you're planning to venture into the Cold War, I'd recommend reading Norman Friedman's The Fifty Year War. It's pretty policy-focused, but that's a useful lens for the conflict, and I don't know of a better work at a similar level of depth.
I look forward to your post every Saturday! Thanks for the dedication, and the great content.
Of the areas of history you mentioned I'm most interested in the Roman Empire, particularly the stuff that doesn't get a lot of attention. Like Diocletian or someone like that.