To Blog or Not?

Someone I met online insisted I must blog to put myself out there where I might find a buyer for my books. From other bloggers I have gathered that one is expected to keep at it, week in and week out. I'm amazed at the number who keep to a strict schedule, producing weekly or monthly, or whatever. I've also read that if a blogger wants readers, s/he must offer something a reader wants or needs. "Aye, there's the rub."

In my opinion, many bloggers offer tips and hints and glimpses at inside tracks to help their readers sell or learn something. From day one, I've known I don't have that kind of thing to offer. All I can put out there in the blogosphere is what I can put out there in articles or novels or stories or poetry:  what I hope might touch a sympathetic vibration in another human being. I might as well be trying to sell an essay to yet another uninterested agent or market. Makes a person wonder if it's worth the time invested.

So herewith a list of tiny successes thus far in 2012:

Two poems in www.lowestoftchronicle.com; one in Lucidity Poetry Journal; one in Red Poppy Poetry Review; one for an anthology to be published by the Poetry Institute of Canada; one for an anthology to be published by Inner Child Press; and a dozen or so reviews and essays for www.seniorwomen.com. An essay has been published in an anthology called Heartscapes by Spruce Mountain Press. I'll spare us all the number of rejections or simple non-responses.

What I'd really like to know is whether this blog has helped. If a reader responds, it's encouraging. If no one does, it's discouraging. But the latter is the result of 90% of what most of us send out, isn't it?

The Imp on My Shoulder

I knew there was a disadvantage to beginning to write a blog, but when I started I wasn't sure which of several possibilities it would turn out to be. At the moment, uppermost is the requirement of producing posts on a regular basis. Along with my disaffection with volunteerism, I'm getting to a place where I don't want to look at the date on the last post!

Didn't we tell each other when we moved to a "retirement community" that one of its appeals was the first word in that phrase? It didn't take a month to show us the naivete of such a notion. Things are getting a bit desperate around here nowadays because people who came when we did are 15 years older, dozens have passed to their reward, and the newcomers (too few and far between owing to the housing market crash--most people sell a house to pay the entry fee) tend to be already relying on walkers, suffering from macular degeneration, or too deaf to converse. All this makes them unlikely prospects for committees, offices in the association, or even decent bridge.

I passed my 80th a while back. I don't want to do this any more. Most of the people I know well don't either. The Decorating Committee petered out a couple of years ago. Trying to persuade somebody to take an office on the Residents Association Board is getting to a place where it involves bribery, extortion, or blackmail. I've already refused to be on the nominating committee again.

Shouldn't I be spending my time and available energy on writing -- as opposed to blogging? Furthermore, I can't help thinking I have a right to claim these September Days for myself. But there's always an voice whispering in my ear that of course I can -- serve on this or that deserving committee, polish the brass candlesticks, weed the flowers, and give this spot an occasional word or two in case anyone might be reading it. On the other hand, I'm still lucky enough to be healthy if not hearty, and possessed of my faculties.

So now the guilt rises up again. These moans aren't worth bothering with. Well, maybe next week when I finish helping with rewriting the handbook, have the third meeting on revising the scholarship application forms, and get the next issue of the newsletter out (thank goodness, it's only 2 a year I have to deal with), I can make some sage or funny comment about what I'd rather be doing--and it isn't fishing!

Perennial Question

I've just taken a rare look at the little list of my "followers." Clearly I should have done it sooner. There are a couple or three that I decided I'd like to know something about. How to do this? I went to the other blogs they follow. Having done that, I wonder if it was a good idea. What in the world has led them here in the first place, and especially, why would they list themselves as followers? If they visited once, have they ever read anything here again? Is there some kind of (sinister?) prank better suited to social networking sites? I'll bet if they do read this, they'll know who they are. If they're gentlemen, maybe they'll post a comment that will answer my question.

Some bloggers are obviously grinding axes; some are venting; some have miseries or excitement they want someone else to know about. I thought this was to help promote my books, etc. Well, I've realized after far too long that bragging is something I don't know how to do in a way that wouldn't alienate a homeless puppy. So I put something in the "gadgets" to let any reader know what's been published, but I have trouble doing more than that. Note: another story should be on Books to Go Now in a few days. Note: a poem will appear next March (2011) in an online journal called Lowestoft Chronicle. There, I did it. I think this is the second time I've mentioned these things.

So then I have to ask myself if there's any good reason for commenting on writing and being old, and all that. Probably only the sort of built-in compulsion of a would-be writer. Thank goodness there are so many of us out there I needn't feel peculiar. If I could claim the ability and need to earn a living writing, it would be different. I'd starve if I had to do this to get fed! So on I plow. As I sometimes tell my friends at a distance and my children (ditto), it keeps me out of the traffic.

Something to Say?

It turns out that trying to get everything into the computer  or onto paper takes just about all the time I have. Having written that, I realize how foolish it must look. "Everything?" Haven't you noticed that there's a perpetual motion machine in your head? Stick your toe out to trip it up and make it stop? No Way. Some people may hope to drug or drink it into slowing down at least, but that's only a temporary solution.  My efforts for a rest drive me to try to get words to help--just by putting them down so I can read them back to myself and decide if they might be useful, comforting, amusing, educational, or offer a leg up to somebody's creative genie. Besides, if I don't know something, I have to find out about it. As for opinion: I need to write to find out what I think.

This situation is relatively new for me, and I've no doubt is connected to age. After a certain amount of time has passed, the most insulated or self-absorbed personality is bound to discover there's stuff he or she knows now. I wish I could save somebody else the trouble of discovering them the way I did:  by accident, or by finally being open to the message. So the blog is  a duty and is becoming more of a necessity. Naturally, I really hope someone will want to read something else I've written if they read this.

Enough of this mental meandering. I have a deadline for a newsletter and one for my review and an essay for the webzine www.seniorwomen.com. Besides, there are about three more contests I'd like to enter...

More later.

The Trouble with Writers' Conferences...

There are certainly times when it's hard to keep up. The last week was one of them. What I haven't figured out is how to balance my writerly concerns with what's of real consequence in so many other venues! Thank heaven for the promise that seems to glow from the White House. May it shine across all the dark places!

Yet, if any one of us expects to help out anywhere, maybe we have to be giving time and energy to whatever our abilities may be if we hope to develop them. So I try not to get discouraged by the advertisements for upcoming writers' conferences and the guidelines for those who hope to attend. Naturally you can't find one for free, and if you could and it was too far to go in a day or lasted longer than one day, you'd have to pay for food and lodging. Plus the conference fee. And then there's the insistent (and understandable) reminder that every seeker for an agent or editor or advice from an author should have a newly-purchased copy of their objective's book visible before making an approach. While I understand that nothing is available for nothing, that it costs money to persuade the experts to expose themselves to the hoards of wannabes, to provide venues and facilities, there seems to me to be something just slightly off kilter here.

Even the wonderful sponsors of these affairs might be able to offer some kind of discounts or "reduced rates," or other assistance to the people who are sweating it out every day just to get the validation even a tiny recompense might provide them if only they could sell something they've produced. I guess what gets to me is that so much of the time, it's necessary to stroke the egos and extol the reputations of the people who are supposed (by advertisement) to be there to help, seemingly with so little thought of the people who have come to receive that help.

One of the most stimulating, inspiring, exciting events of my life was a writers' conference I attended almost exactly 20 years ago. My husband figured I could have the car for the requisite 3-day weekend, and we'd manage the room and board somehow. Thank goodness there were "scholarships" offered in each classification. Being granted one on the basis of a story I submitted made it possible for me to go.

If I could, I'd go to a conference every year just for the incredible high of being among others with similar aspirations and to get the experts' help. Ironically, my scholarship story was critiqued (for perhaps ten minutes) by a then prestigious author, whose only comment I recall was that it was too sentimental. When I sold that story a few months later, I began the slow process of coming to the realization that you simply can't tell what will sell or to whom. What you can do, and it seems to be the only thing you can do unless you have plenty of disposable income, is to find somebody who will read it--your poem, your story or stories, your novel, your memoir. If only people could read it, there would almost certainly be somebody out there who would be glad they did.

Which brings me back to this: the blog, the network, the word-of-mouth and the sympathetic ear. My great regret is that I didn't figure this out 30 years ago, or try it 20 years sooner.

Why does one blog?

I've been writing these for several months now, and can't help wondering whether anyone is reading them. The Sunday New York Times Magazine for May 25 had a cautionary tale for the feature article, by and about a blogger. This person claims to have revealed too much of herself for the world to see. I find my own motives are quite different from hers.

I want to reveal only enough to make a reader curious about my book(s). The "s" in parentheses is there because I hope to live long enough to see my next book in print. (It's been under contract for over 2 years.)

Settling (see cover illustration on the right) came out originally in 2004. It's a book for adults. That means there's a little bad language; no porn but some real sex; not much violence, but a rape; some tragedy, but with redeeming aftermaths. It's a love story, but it doesn't boast a conventional happy ending, which makes me think it doesn't really qualify as a romance. Besides, I want the reader to consider a few possible questions after finishing the story. For instance: how much should a person sacrifice for love? How much should we value good will? How about the pros and cons of fantasy and dreams? What are the consequences in adulthood of one's childhood influences? Maybe half a dozen other things. Yes, it's supposed to be entertainment, but just maybe it can offer a bit more than that.

Amazon offers it in paper or for your Kindle reader; you can order from the publisher at www.ebooksonthe.net.

If you think a story by this blogger might be of interest, it would be pretty easy to find out!