To Blog, or Not to Blog: Is That the Question?

Apparently, one of the first things an aspiring author needs (besides a book) is a website. And one way to generate traffic toward said website is to write a blog. Except for "writing blogs" that offer specific writerly advice, I've always found the idea of blogging to be a bit self-indulgent. After all, who in the world cares what I have to say? But if I believed that, then I'd also have no reason to write novels, so I've taken a deep breath and altered the way I'm looking at this whole blog thing.

I wrote my first novel, City Elemental, quite a few years ago—pre-marriage, pre-kids. The book it is today doesn't bear much resemblance to what I wrote back then, but the bones of the story have remained mostly unchanged. The main characters and what makes them tick have held steady, though the story itself has been altered wildly from what my twenty-something-year-old brain conjured up. I think the changes are for the better. I certainly hope they are.

I’m about to turn forty, which isn’t freaking me out as much as I thought it would, mainly because I feel like the next decade is going to be an exciting one. But I’m coming to the end of staying home full time with my kids and as I go back to the corporate world of meetings and spreadsheets, I want a goal to work toward. Something just for me. My goal has always been to become a published author. It’s possible that in time I will change that goal from traditional publishing to self-publishing, but I’m not quite ready to give up on selling my novel to a publisher. And so I’ve begun the difficult, sometimes tedious, work of fine-tuning my manuscript and honing my craft.

I’ve attended a couple of writing conferences in the past six months and an agent I pitched to requested my full manuscript, which was a rush. I also got a rejection, but it was a nice rejection that noted how funny my main character is and how clear my voice is, which was wonderful to hear. I also joined two writing groups. (You see, I am serious about this writing thing.) Both groups are full of interesting, talented, seriously funny people and their feedback has been invaluable. The only problem is, I’ve been attending a group each week for almost six months and I haven’t even gotten through six chapters of my thirty-three-chapter novel. I need beta readers! But that is a discussion for another blog post.

This blog won’t just be about writing. I’ll also talk about my kids and going back to work and… life. But I will concentrate on writing about writing because it’s something I’ve loved since I was a kid penning stories about anthropomorphic pickles with my best friend in elementary school. I'm still outraged that Pickle Town never found a publisher.

So, if you've wandered over to my small, quiet corner of the internet, welcome to my blog and thanks for reading. I'm so glad you're here!