Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A History of My Blog Habits (or "We Didn't Start the Fire")

*With apologies to Billy Joel

Tip of the Day: Getting sucked into The Bachelor can really dig into Monday night writing time....

When I started my first blog on LiveJournal in 2006, it was just for an online YA writing class; I didn't expect to keep it going, but as more and more writers I came to "know" on Verla Kay's message board posted about their writing lives on LJ, the more I wanted to keep up with my "Friends List" -- and I also wanted to contribute something to those who "friended" me back. I've never been comfortable with posting too many personal anecdotes online, so my LJ became a place for me to write short summaries and reviews of every book I read. I like that identity for my LJ; anyone who chooses to follow me knows what to expect. Maintaining it also allows me to get more "personal" with some of my "friends" because I can comment on their posts.

In 2009 when we started A2A, I decided this would be my blog to post about writing from both the creative and business sides. I know that my posts here are sometimes more engaging than others, but I enjoy keeping this blog not only for conneting with readers, but also with my A2A Misses, and it forces me to "publish" a piece every week and to think about writing topics.

I don't know that I'll ever trade these two blogs for Twitter or Facebook, although I have minimally used accounts for both.

In terms of my blog reading, besides those on my LJ feed right now I tune into some publisher blogs, a group blog, and others as tweeted/linked to -- as time allows. That's where I am now in my online reading life.

But sometimes what I'm doing in my life changes how I read blogs. When I was looking for an agent, I read a TON of agent blogs. When I subbed to a few editors on my own in between agents, I read a TON of editor blogs, or blogs where they were interviewed. And I think that's OK. As long as the material is out there on the internet, I like knowing I can tune into different entries when I need them.

Deena, Miss Subbing for Pubbing

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