Blogging: Taking up a piece of chalk and scribbling periodically on the internet blackboard.
If you want people to come read your blog in droves, I sense two apparent solid approaches:
1.Write exclusively about a subject. Fly fishing forever! Toenail art! Kumquat recipes! The more specific the better. Kumquat Recipes for People with Bedazzled Toenails Who Enjoy Fly-fishing.
2. Write about all of the above, plus 1,000 other topics, regularly, frequently, and in a voice so particular and compelling that we come just to hear the sound of the pen scratching, or slightly more literally, the fingertips tapping.
Well, THOSE aren't going to work for me. For one thing, I'm a hopeless unrepentant dilettante. (I suppose that's better than just being a plain old dilettante eaten up by the hopelessness of the condition, but still...not a good candidate for the task of maintaining a highly specialized blog!) I find the history of pencils as alluring as the sociology of institutions, or the habits of goats. My knowledge base for all these things is strictly superficial which would seem to make me a candidate for the second obvious approach, but then I'd have to face the challenge of "frequency" and "regularity", not to mention the whole intimidating project of effecting "a voice so particular and compelling that...blah, blah, blah".
It won't be a blog about the craft of writing. One, I'm still so very grasshopper in that world, and two, so many other bloggers already do that so well. (If you ever need a practical strategy for moving forward on a fiction project, or navigating a particular character, plot, or thematic challenge, check out Janice Hardy's website, The Other Side of the Story. http://blog.janicehardy.com/ ) If she only knew how many times she kept me going during my revision process!
It also won't be a documentation of my journey towards publication. It would be like asking readers to start in on a book at Chapter 15 out of 20. Plus, and again, so many have already done it so well. I'm extremely grateful to those who have laid out the ups, downs, sashays, and back and forth steps of their personal journeys from drafting, to agent seeking to publisher finding, to launching, to writing sequels, etc. "Through a glass darkly and then face to face". They have generously provided a light in the dark, comfort, and nourishment for those of us stumbling along behind them. Nathalie Whipple is a superb case in point. http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/
So what IS the point of this blog? The truth is, the only reason I began to think about rowing a blog boat out to sea is because I needed to build a website because I have a book, my first book, coming out in April, and the Weebly.com website template throws in a blog option. No one forced me to click on the "Yes, I'd like a blog" button. Many a website glows proudly upon its armature of zeros and ones, blogless. But I did. I don't really yet know why. So, in the absence of that knowledge, I've named my blog the Locked Bathroom, and will, for the moment, content myself (and punish anyone who stumbles upon it) with its as yet inchoate point, and a "plan" to see what happens.
If you want people to come read your blog in droves, I sense two apparent solid approaches:
1.Write exclusively about a subject. Fly fishing forever! Toenail art! Kumquat recipes! The more specific the better. Kumquat Recipes for People with Bedazzled Toenails Who Enjoy Fly-fishing.
2. Write about all of the above, plus 1,000 other topics, regularly, frequently, and in a voice so particular and compelling that we come just to hear the sound of the pen scratching, or slightly more literally, the fingertips tapping.
Well, THOSE aren't going to work for me. For one thing, I'm a hopeless unrepentant dilettante. (I suppose that's better than just being a plain old dilettante eaten up by the hopelessness of the condition, but still...not a good candidate for the task of maintaining a highly specialized blog!) I find the history of pencils as alluring as the sociology of institutions, or the habits of goats. My knowledge base for all these things is strictly superficial which would seem to make me a candidate for the second obvious approach, but then I'd have to face the challenge of "frequency" and "regularity", not to mention the whole intimidating project of effecting "a voice so particular and compelling that...blah, blah, blah".
It won't be a blog about the craft of writing. One, I'm still so very grasshopper in that world, and two, so many other bloggers already do that so well. (If you ever need a practical strategy for moving forward on a fiction project, or navigating a particular character, plot, or thematic challenge, check out Janice Hardy's website, The Other Side of the Story. http://blog.janicehardy.com/ ) If she only knew how many times she kept me going during my revision process!
It also won't be a documentation of my journey towards publication. It would be like asking readers to start in on a book at Chapter 15 out of 20. Plus, and again, so many have already done it so well. I'm extremely grateful to those who have laid out the ups, downs, sashays, and back and forth steps of their personal journeys from drafting, to agent seeking to publisher finding, to launching, to writing sequels, etc. "Through a glass darkly and then face to face". They have generously provided a light in the dark, comfort, and nourishment for those of us stumbling along behind them. Nathalie Whipple is a superb case in point. http://betweenfactandfiction.blogspot.com/
So what IS the point of this blog? The truth is, the only reason I began to think about rowing a blog boat out to sea is because I needed to build a website because I have a book, my first book, coming out in April, and the Weebly.com website template throws in a blog option. No one forced me to click on the "Yes, I'd like a blog" button. Many a website glows proudly upon its armature of zeros and ones, blogless. But I did. I don't really yet know why. So, in the absence of that knowledge, I've named my blog the Locked Bathroom, and will, for the moment, content myself (and punish anyone who stumbles upon it) with its as yet inchoate point, and a "plan" to see what happens.
