Moonlighting

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’ve been doing “double duty” blogging of late. While keeping up my work here at Wizbang, I have been writing pieces for Willisms over the last couple of days. Nobody’s come out and asked what the story was, but I figure I better head off any speculation.

First up: no, I am not “testing the waters” about leaving Wizbang. I started here, I’m planning on staying here. One of my most serious character flaws is laziness and inertia. I am very comfortable here, and intend on sticking around for the foreseeable future.

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As Will explained recently, he is extremely busy right now, doing political work for the GOP. He can’t go into too many details, but it’s abundantly clear that he just doesn’t have the time to prepare the kinds of insightful, thoroughly-researched works we, his readers, have come to expect.

I’ve been a fan of Will’s ever since I first discovered him, through a trackback to a piece of mine. He’s one of the “big thinkers” of the blogosphere, one of the top-notch essayists, and I put him alongside such worthies as Austin Bay, Wretchard, Dafydd ab Hugh, and Bill Whittle (all of whom are clustered together in my personal blogroll). Will has considerably less prominence, however, which is why when Kevin was looking for some guest bloggers a while ago, I nominated him. I figured a bit of exposure around here might boost his own blog’s standing — and he apparently agreed, because he accepted.

Because of that, and because he seems like a decent guy, I feel a debt of honor towards him. When I saw his site was slumping in his absence (not to denigrate Ken McCracken’s efforts, but I believe Ken will be the first to agree that he’s not Will), I wrote him and offered to contribute for a little while. Will was more than gracious to entrust access to his “baby” to me, and so far I’d like to think I haven’t caused him to doubt his trust.

Another reason I made the offer was purely selfish. As I said, I tend to be lazy. I’ve gotten very comfortable here at Wizbang, and have settled into a style and manner that has worked pretty well. But Willisms is a different sort of blog, and my standard, signature pieces simply wouldn’t fit in. For example, my “Dumb Criminals” and “Mass. Insanity” postings would stick out like the proverbial sore thumb over at that Exemplar of Classiness. So, therefore, I’ve forced myself to write in a Willisms-compatible fashion — higher concepts, loftier language, and eschewing the puns, casual profanities, pop-culture allusions, and juvenile crassness that are often my hallmark.

It’s a challenge, but it’s a good one. It’s sometimes a touch uncomfortable to stretch in these ways, but it’s ultimately beneficial for me as a writer.

I didn’t make any formal commitments to Will, but my intention was to come up with a piece every day or two, for at least a week or two. Practically speaking, I’ll continue as long as I can find topics worth discussing, and without cutting into my self-imposed commitments here at Wizbang.

And believe me when I say that no one — absolutely no one — wants Will to come back, kick me out, and reclaim his blog as much as I do.