To be clear

If I'm blogging, I'm not writing my next novel. So when you come here and see a ton of new posts, you should say "Oh, the poor guy. He's still not writing."

And when you come here and find nothing new, you should say "Hooray! Keith's writing again. I'm so happy for him!"

I just wanted to sort that out for you. Carry on.

Does blogging take away from journaling?

Since I started blogging, I write less in my journal. Perhaps blogging cuts into my urge to write. Could be, I suppose. But I'm not sold on the idea.

My journal is most useful when I'm writing fiction. In the middle of a furious writing session, I'll "take a break" by closing Scrivener and jumping into my journal. There I have a discussion with myself about what I'm writing, how I feel about it, the problems, etc. -- and as I write, I often reach a decision that makes me jump out of the journal and back into Scrivener, to proceed with the story. Journaling is a necessary part of my writing process.

But the sad fact is that I haven't written anything new in months. This fact upsets me. It's like "what's wrong with this picture?" But I have three "completed" books to get out the door. What else can I do but continue to finalize them? If I don't, they'll never see the light of day, nor a reader. In any case, I suspect the lack of fiction writing in my life is why I write less in my journal these days. I can't blame blogging, which seems to fit easily into my spare moments.

Anyone else do both? How does blogging affect your journaling? Are they related?

Blogging reminds me of literate friendships

You don't understand blogging until you actually do it. There are so many side issues that come up, and they're a big part of the experience. One of those is relations between your blog and other blogs. Now that's something I never even considered before I began to blog.

People comment on your blog and you comment on theirs. It just happens. On the one hand, it creates a relationship between you and the other bloggers -- but it also proves to be a relationship between the blogs themselves. Their commenters see your comments and visit your blog, and your commenters see their profiles and visit their blogs. It just grows.

In the end, your blog becomes friends with other blogs. They're different, of course; no blog is a mirror of your own, and really, you wouldn't want that, would you?. The differences are enjoyable. "Ah, my friend thinks differently about this. Interesting." You do indeed develop a relationship with the other blog, and it colors your comments. You try to comment in a way that will fit their blog -- which is not always an easy thing to do. For instance, they may not be out as gay or atheist. You find yourself trying to conform to their blog's parameters. Now, doesn't that sound like a relationship?

These considerations bring to mind a book I read long ago and loved. "84, Charing Cross Road" is a bibliophile's dream: a book about books, at least in part. It's about the author, Helene Hanff, an American, and her actual written communications with a gentleman bookseller in England. They wrote to each other for many years.

As Hanff wrote about the books she was interested in buying, and expressed her pleasure at the volumes he'd already sent, the two developed a relationship that became more and more meaningful as the years passed. Their relationship is exquisite, and their words are a joy to read. In her letters, Hanff often stated that she planned to visit England to meet her correspondent. Alas, he dies before she can make the trip.

They came to know one another through words alone. This reminds me so much of how we bloggers relate to each other. Through our words we come to know each other, and I think that's a fine thing.

So: a shout-out to all the bloggers I've met during these three short months of blogging. (And in case you don't notice, this is the closest I'll come to saying Happy Valentine's Day.) 

PS: This morning, I accidentally deleted this post, which sounded fabulous last night. I just cobbled this together from memory. I promise the original one was much, much better. Grrrrrrrr!

So this is what blogging gets you

Yesterday I skipped work, a rarity for me. But it was called for since my cousin Carmine was visiting. We sat around laughing all day. It's what we do.

But here's the thing: it was so weird to see someone who knows all kinds of stuff about my life because he reads my blog every day! I hadn't expected this and it was great. Why, it was exactly as if I wasn't writing into a void!

I guess all bloggers experience this, eh? I should have expected it. Has this happened to you? And did it please you as much as it did me?

About this blogging thing

After nearly two months, I have to say I'm enjoying blogging. It's a lot of fun and provides another outlet for my endless urge to write. It's easy to do and I certainly never feel pressured to produce the next post. Coming up with ideas is what my brain does. So blogging seems a very normal and natural thing to me.

In the days before I began to write fiction I would write endless email and letters. I always tried to amuse my correspondents and I think I was successful for the most part. That was how I got my writing rocks off. It worked for a time.

It was fun but then one day I noticed how limiting this was. After all, who was I reaching? One friend, period. That was nice in its way but was that all I could do with my writing? Once this thought came along it changed everything. Eventually it caused me to break out and starting writing novels.

And now there's blogging. For me, this is not only new and fun, it also presents all sorts of possibilities for connecting with new readers. I'm grateful to have this new avenue for my writing.

I don't know if anyone's reading what I post here (except for my one loyal commenter -- may she live a long and fabulous life!) but the possibility is there. With each new post I could connect with a new reader. It's not quite like having a book published and gaining throngs of readers but it's a mini version of that and I'm glad to have it. 

Blogging is great. Now if only some folks other than my one trusted commenter would leave evidence that they had been here. If only.

One month in

I've been blogging for a little over a month now. Time to take stock. Like everything else, blogging is something you learn by doing. In this short period I've figured out a few things -- and still have to get a grip on others.

As to those "others", my tag cloud is a mess down there on the bottom left of the page. I guess you shouldn't tag every post uniquely, huh? Duh. I'll work on that. Plus I tend to publish posts and then edit them, thus republishing them again and again. Keith, do your editing when it's a draft. See? So that's another one I have to work on.
 
As for the numbers, it seems I wrote 53 posts in November, which isn't bad for a working writer who's pretty busy. And I had over a thousand visitors. I don't know how that happened but it did. (And no, I'm not tracking my own visits.) There are allegedly visitors from about ten countries, though I wonder if some of those "visits" aren't merely bots cataloging what's on the net.

Of course, the best thing is that I finally have a few comments! There's only one commenter, though. Thanks, C!  C'mon people: comment! It's half the fun of visiting a blog.

One thing that changed during this period was the blog's description, the one-paragraph summary of the blog's purpose that sits atop the page. After a few weeks I realized my initial concept of the blog did not mesh with the blog I was actually writing. My first description was far too confining. It said this is a blog about writing fiction -- and not much else. It is indeed a blog about writing fiction. Most of my posts have been about writing -- how to do it and what it's like. But the blog is bigger than that.

So I altered the description to reflect the atheistic, liberal, pro-gay, pro-science nature of the place. Before I did that, I think folks arrived looking only for writing tips, saw anti-pope posts, and fled to say a quick rosary. That's not the reader experience I wanted to provide -- though I kinda like the fleeing and rosary-saying part of it. And when the description was only about writing, there was another problem -- visitors thought only writers were invited to comment. Blogs are for everyone, and anyone can comment here.

Now, a month in, the place seems comfortable to me: a nice, atheistic, rational environment with a touch of humor and a smattering of snark. The strangeness is gone; this is home. I feel free to write here about what it's like to be a fiction writer, or anything else that crosses my liberal mind. I like that much better than "just" having a writing blog. I hope readers will too.

Onward and upward.