I'm changing the way I blog

[NovelMama]

I had lunch with an agent yesterday who said the most profound thing to me about blogging. I HATE blogging. I do it because "writers need to blog." But I never know what to say, and I *thought* that, because I'm a writer, I need to blog about books and writing.

But this woman told me, "Write to your audience." When she said it, I was like and "DUH". So, starting with today's blog (I post twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays) I'm going to be writing to my audience--namely, moms in their 20-30's. IOW, most of you. If you're a blog reading type of gal, I hope you'll stop over and check it out, and comment if you have something to add or ask or whatever.

[4MKfam]

Gotta laugh, because I blog, therefore I am. Sort of . I write as catharsis --to work out things I'm thinking through or ...well, to my "audience," which at this point is mainly family, friends, and a few random people bored enough to bump into my blog. Never occurred to me that blogging might be a necessary discipline for a writer .

Then again, I haven't written a novel or been Published (capital P), either . Even NaNoWriMo scares the poop out of me 'cause I'm sort of allergic to fiction ...but I see *that* as a necessary discipline and hope to give it a go this year. I want to write (professionally?) someday, but I have no. idea. where to start. Which would be why I'm hoping/planning to go back to school this winter and see if higher education can help me figure out how to untangle all these ideas in my head and help me write stuff usefully.

That was rambly . All that to say... I think I'll go check out your blog!

[schmamy]

This kind of reminds me of what Lisa Velthouse (college acquaintance who just had a book published this spring) wrote when she started her "I have to have a blog because I'm an author and my publicity people are making me but I don't want to" blog --hers has turned out to be really interesting (lisavelthouse.com - haven't been that many posts, so you might be interested in going back and reading the first one or two). I'll have to check yours out

Originally Posted by 4MKfam

Gotta laugh, because I blog, therefore I am. Sort of . I write as catharsis --to work out things I'm thinking through or ...well, to my "audience," which at this point is mainly family, friends, and a few random people bored enough to bump into my blog. Never occurred to me that blogging might be a necessary discipline for a writer .

Then again, I haven't written a novel or been Published (capital P), either . Even NaNoWriMo scares the poop out of me 'cause I'm sort of allergic to fiction ...but I see *that* as a necessary discipline and hope to give it a go this year.

Do you mean fiction is a necessary discipline? Or NaNoWriMo? I can't write fiction to save my life, but I enjoy doing NaBloPoMo every November. Gives me the discipline/challenge to jump-start my blog, and therefore work on my writing, but I don't have to do fiction since that would be pointless

[Emerald Orchid]

I bookmarked your blog Alison. I'm starting to blog as well, and I read the best advice last month: Love your reader. I had done a few post drafts beforehand and they felt very blah, but when I started thinking of people that would be reading it, the light came on for my next posts.