Blogging

Blogging

As I've contemplated the New Year, these neglected blogs have nibbled at the edges of my brain, compelling me to keep up with them better.

Why?

I don't know.

I'm relatively certain that no one is reading them anymore, if anyone ever was.

And that's not an issue I ever gave much thought to, anyway. I do a lot of writing with the search engines in mind by day--I know how to attract them when that's the goal, but I can't think of any real motivation for wanting to draw strangers to my blog. I don't have anything to sell, and since I've been making my living as a writer for several years, I don't usually have trouble finding a forum for what I want to say.

For me, it's always been more about writing than being read. For the first couple of decades that I wrote, I happily tossed finished products in my desk drawer and went on to the next. The magic is all in the writing for me, and once it's done, it's done. That's not the quickest path to financial success, though.

For instance, I wrote a romance novel on the train in November. I did it because it was National Novel Writing Month, though I didn't officially participate in NaNo, and because hearing about NaNo from friends who were participating made me realize how little creative writing I'd done since I started working full time. So I wrote a novel. I sent it to two friends, who came back with the same criticism--I needed a final chapter to "tie up loose ends". I wrote that, did some additional editing, sent it off to the man who inspired it to make sure he wasn't going to freak out, and..

Well, actually, nothing comes after the "and". What I didn't do was submit it anywhere. Or query agents. Or join the Romance Writers of America in hoeps that their resources might help me do one of those things. Or, to be completely honest, even print it out. It inspired me to finish another novel I'd had sitting around for a long time, so when the first one was done, I pulled the second one out, re-read what I'd written, and got back to work. So I have a novel and a half now, and no plans.

Of course, the world is full of people who have written novels and don't or can't or won't or don't know how to do anything with them, but I don't have any of those excuses. I've made my living writing for several years. I know what to do next. I even think vaguely about doing it. But I'm a mom with a full time job, a nearly 3-hour round-trip commute, and stacks of boxes still to be unpacked from my move over the summer. I have a VERY limited amount of time in which to do something with my writing, and when I do, I want that something to be...writing.

There's a Downside to Everything

There's a Downside to Everything

Back when I first started this blog, I wrote a post called "The Danger of Positive Feedback". It was all about how, when you're a writer, it's great to have someone read your work and say, "oh, that's great!" and "I loved it--write more!" but it's not really helpful.

Recently, I finished a novel in a new genre for me, and I handed it off to two friends who are both writers and avid readers, and they both said it needed another chapter. One of them also said one of my secondary characters needed more backstory. I was overjoyed; I love clarity. It was also convenient, because I was 4,000 words short on the target length for the genre, and those two things together put me right in range.

But in my day job I'm doing an entirely different kind of writing these days, and search engines play a much bigger role in my life than I would ever have thought possible. Yesterday, I had my first experience in THAT arena with being thwarted by success.

I sent out a time sensitive press release on the Friday before New Year's Eve and then went home. When I got home at 9:00 on Friday night, I found an email from our press release distribution company requiring documentation of several items in the release.

They were high profile events, so I figured it would be easy to find major news sources to document them, and I sat down (at 9:00 on Friday night, remember) and started poppping relevant terms into Google. And I got...my company website. For the most important term, THREE of the top ten results pointed to my website. If you're not familiar with the search engine game, let me tell you that that's a coup. 30% of the "real estate" on the first page of search results generates a lot of traffic, especially since I had the # 1 and # 2 slots.

I know you're not feeling very sorry for me right now (and I'm not either), but it did present an unanticipated problem. I was looking for a credible source of documentation for a large number of related items, and it turned out that source was...me.