the blogs of others

So, how do other writers use their blogs?

I've been looking at a few, and there are some observable trends. First and foremost, to communicate important support-the-work stuff, like the release date of a New Book, Tour Dates, any Awards the author is running for, etc.
There is also related-to-work stuff, like This Is What I'm Thinking About for the Next Thing, You Might Like This, Look at My Friend's Stuff, etc.
Then there are varying levels of more personal communication. Mandy Hager has recently blogged about censorship and controversy in relation to the book Tender Morsels. Catherynne M Valente has blogged about everything from her struggles with burnout and depression, to the friendly ghost who lives on her island, to her thoughts about pop culture and the need for a cheering squad for writers.

The kind and amount of personal stuff varies. Valente gets more personal perhaps, but it's usually related either to writing or to themes relevant to her writing. Her concerns. She writes grown-up fairy tales, so of course she blogs about the friendly ghost. She has also produced an insane amount of work over the last ten years, so naturally there is a post about how this level of super-productivity can destroy a person. Hopefully she feels able to slow down a bit now she has firmly entrenched herself in a niche of the market. catherynnemvalente.com/blog

Gaiman's blog seems to be less personal in an obvious way, but includes things like his thoughts and observations on his wife's use of twitter to build communities, (his wife being Amanda Palmer, singer performer person) and how his cat Princess is very old and mostly sleeps by the heater in the attic and how he went up there and found lots of old work from when he was a teenager and how unpromising it was except for one thing - there was a lot of it. journal.neilgaiman.com

Mandy Hager has some interesting thoughts on being a writer for YA and kids, including how contrary to some opinions, it's no mean feat creating a book that will help turn someone into a lifelong reader. And I'm now very curious about Margo Lanagan's book Tender Morsels, now that it has apparently been deemed "inappropriate" for younger readers due to themes including rape, incest, and forced abortion.
I've always been fascinated by how some people seem to think that young people shouldn't read about young people being abused, even though plenty of young people themselves are abused. A shocking number of young people are raped, and a significant proportion of those are raped by a member of their own family. Surely, a book about someone who suffers such things and rises above them should be required reading? Especially more so than books where the violence is added as an excitement and the consequences are glossed over?
Some of my favourite YA books are guilty of this, and they're often especially guilty of creating the impression that large-scale killing is never accompanied by that unmentionable vulgarity, rape. Don't believe me? Think about all the fighting in those wholesome Narnia books by C S Lewis, which are indeed a beloved part of my childhood imaginative furniture. But those are just my thoughts, on a book I haven't read yet. For Mandy's thoughts, go here: mandyhager.blogspot.co.nz

Some writers enable comments, and use posts partly as a way to interact with followers, to enable conversation. This can, however, cause problems, when on the internet nobody knows you're a dog. How much time should a writer devote to moderating comment threads, and what the hell do you do when some attention-seeking psycho threatens you? For an elaboration on this, which also goes some way to explaining why big-name writers typically DON'T have comments enabled on their blogs, see Valente's livejournal version of her blog, and the item "This Blog Is Now Moderated By The Iron Fist Of Elizabeth Bennet," catvalente.livejournal.com
For those who are puzzled, Elizabeth Bennet is the protagonist of the early nineteenth-century novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is very proper but also sensible and doesn't take crap from anyone, in a middle-class early-nineteenth-century sort of way. See also, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which is sort of an abridged version with mayhem added.

Meanwhile, Renee not only has a blog, but is serialising a novel on it. That's certainly one way to keep people coming back! wednesdaybusk.com
I expect she has rather more stamina than I do...

oh crap it's May

So. The last few months have not been easy, for various reasons, and so some blog posts have been written but not posted, and some haven't been written at all. As I actually have to do this to pass my course, I really have to get on with this. So the overdue posts will soon be appearing. Hopefully a bunch of other ones will be too. Today, Monday, I have a nasty headache that won't entirely go away and am horribly tired, and the next while is going to be chaos anyway, so any and all posts are likely to appear sporadically.

Right now I am going for a walk while the daylight remains, because I think a bit of fresh air and exercise will help. Back soon...