Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Blogging Malaise







Write a blog post, the publisher says.
You're an author, you must blog, the publisher says, people want to know what you think, and what you're up to.
As always, up to no good, I grumble, and the publisher gives me a "good grief".
I can hear her breathe in, ready to launch a lengthy speech on the merits of blogging, and I'm perfectly sure that I can hear her fingers flying across the computer keyboard, finding links about blogging to fling at me.
I'll chat all day long on twitter, I tell her, I'll chat all day on Facebook, and I'll pin stuff to my Pinterest boards until my fingers bleed. Promise! BIG promise.
But the blog, she says, when did you write your last blog post? Huh? When?
I grumble a reply, and she goes, "AHA! That was last month! Hop to it, missy!"
It doesn't hep that she sends me one of those uber-cute kitty stickers on Facebook chat, either.
She's like that: very funny, very sweet, always kind and understanding, but hidden under all the cupcakes and chocolate is a small, iron fist that makes me do the things she wants me to do, and pronto.
It doesn't even help that she calls me a "speed demon" where my writing is concerned.
That's what you get for being fast, reliable, disciplined and open to suggestions (yes, I know that's a euphemism for "do what the publisher wants you to do, and write the books the publisher wants to see – and seriously, who wouldn't do that, if you have a publisher you really like, and who makes writing for them a blast?)

So here I am, writing a blog post. And here is the sad, hard truth: I'll never be a great blogger.
Why? There's nothing to blog about!
I get up, make coffee, go to my desk (with the coffee) and write. Around noontime, I start cooking lunch for the family, we have lunch, I go back to my desk, and write. In the evening, I watch TV or knit, or (rarely, because my head is full of words already) read a book. Then I go to bed. And so on.
And that's what I do on twenty-eight days of the month.
On the other days, the hubby and I go out for lunch, or shopping downtown, or both.

And that's it, folks! That's how I write two books a year ( and each of them with about 110K words), and some additional stuff like the short stories for #amwriting (sadly, no more), or the Super Secret Project I finished last night.
And this blog post.

LOOK BUDDHAPUSS INK I BLOGGED! LOOK!

*goes away grumbling, and hoping that one blog post a week will be enough*







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