Thursday, June 9, 2011

A New Direction

As you can tell by the lack of posting, I've reached something a blogging crisis on my new blog. Basically the problem is thus. Being a writer, I had set out to write a writers blog. What do writers blog about? Why they blog about writing, what else? The problem is that I really want this blog to not just be about me, and for me. I want the blog to help or entertain the people who visit it. I know, what a novel and noble concept. For that to happen, I sort of need to be able to give advice or instruction about the writing process, and seeing as I'm kind of new to this who journey myself, I don't have much advice or instruction to give. The best I can do is point you to others who are a) a lot smarter than me, and b) better writers than me. I could always try to parrot their stuff and call it my own, but that doesn't' seem very nice, or ethical. Darn having ethics!
So what to do. I really like blogging. I like putting my thoughts down on ‘paper ‘ as it were. My previous blog was a lot of fun. There's no way I can blog two to three times a week about writing. That just isn’t happening. Ultimately, I'd like to use my blog to connect to people all over the world wide web who share some common interest. I'd like to make some new friends and keep up with the old ones.
So this is what I've decided to do. I got the idea from a fantastic blog by Kristen Lamb on why writers shouldn’t blog about writing. Taking that advice, I’m going in a new direction. I'm not doing a Writing blog anymore. I am now doing a Ted blog. What topics can you expect on a Ted blog? I'm glad you asked. I will talk about whatever I'm passionate about, and because I'm a living, breathing, growing human being, those topics are likely to change from time to time. You can expect to read about Video Games, Movies, NFL Football, and being a Dad to tween and a baby. I'll also occasionally talk about what I'm learning about Writing, and how I'm growing in my relationship with God. Not everything will be of interest to you. I have some friends that I talk to about Sci-Fi, but they aren’t much into football. That’s okay.
What I hope is that you'll enjoy the blog, occasionally be informed, and always entertained.


2 comments:

Laurie Tom said...

There are different approaches to blogging and what attracts people. When writing anything, fiction or blogs, I think about who my target audience is. I don't think a writer's blog should only be about writing, but you might want to consider the purpose of your blog and if you do want the audience to transition to your writing. (As an off-beat example, if you plan to write Star Trek books, you might not cross over much if your blog talks a lot about knitting.)

I follow several writers' blogs precisely because they talk about writing. Their non-writing posts I might skim, but if they have something interesting to say, I'll read about it.

Patty Jansen of Must Use Bigger Elephants talks about the science in science fiction. Scott W. Baker of Chaos out of Chaos talks about his latest sf convention trip and how he's now writing steampunk for the first time.

They aren't professionals with books out, though they do have some short story publications, and I mention that because that precisely because they're early in their writing careers and their blogs are from the perspective of new writers.

I like reading about the research a writer's doing, what their influences are, if they've had a really productive day, just finished a milestone in the story (10%, 25%, 50%, etc.). I actually started following your blog because you talked about writing.

You can write about other things, but I'd like to see you still weave the writing in there somewhere.

Unknown said...

I definitively will still talk about my writing , milestones, research, etc. Monday's post is about something writer.

But I will also branch off to other topics. It's the only way I'll be able to maintain a regular schedule.

Ultimately , I think the purpose of the blog is to connect with kindred spirits across the internet, to make some new friends. Hopefully, those people might be interested in my work, but if I grow in relationships, they and I are all the richer for it.