We’re writers, so we should write about everything, right? Not if we care about maintaining an audience, we shouldn’t. Despite our deep-seated belief that every thing that happens to us and every thought we have is interesting to others, some things writers like to blog about are just plain boring or, worse, portray them in a negative light. I’ve learned most of these because I’ve done them and driven off readers with them, so don’t think I’m setting these down as reminders for others. They apply to me doubly so. They include:
- Your rejection letters. You can use them to illustrate a point, but blogging “rejected by F&SF, 8 days” isn’t very interesting. Also, it makes you look kinda like a schlub when your blog is full of rejection letters. Your readers only need to know when you have new work coming out. They don’t care how many agents turned you down, or how many rejections you gathered along the way before the sale.
- Your word count for the day. Good for you, seriously. I know some people use this as a kind of social reinforcement, but personally, I can’t stand looking at a blog and seeing nothing but a long list of short posts talking about what you wrote that day.
- Your favorite snippet from your work-in-progress. Out of context, it isn’t nearly as neat or interesting as you think it is. Publish the story and we’ll bask in the glow of your genius then.
- Grammar. Snore.
- In general, the craft and daily travails of being a writer.
I firmly believe that writers should be interesting for something other than being a writer. It’s a rare individual who can be scintillating to the general public while talking about the sausage-making of writing.* If you’re a writer, surely you’re passionate about something other than writing. Blog about whatever that is.
Look at it this way–who is your target audience? The subject of writing is interesting to other writers and aspiring writers. They are not necessarily the readers you want, because there are not very many of them. If your goal is to collect a following greater than a few hundred people, then you need a subject of broader interest–even just the genre that you write in is more interesting than the act of writing itself.
Clearly I am not following the advice of the last point here. I write about writing for a good reason, and that’s because my freelance business caters to writers. Writers are my target audience for these posts, so I am comfortable with it. As I complete my business website, these kinds of advice posts will transition to that site, and my personal blog will become more, well, personal.
*Exempt from this advice are writers with staggering readerships, such as Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi.
ETA:
Nick Mamatas has this to say in the comments, and it’s a strong point:
The subject of writing is interesting to other writers and aspiring writers. They are not necessarily the readers you want, because there are not very many of them.
Crazy talk. There are millions of aspiring writers, and thus an industry to service them—several monthly magazines, a plethora of how-to books, seminars and conferences, over 100 degree-granting programs in the subject, etc.
Aspiring writers also tend to read more widely (and deeply) than non-aspirants. Aspiring writers are certainly a large audience worth cultivating.
So I took this advice much further than I should have. And I should point out that my advice was aimed squarely not at writers who blog as a kind of personal journal. I aim it at people who are looking to deliberately and methodically grow an audience. If you’re writing a personal journal style blog, but want to use your blog to grow an audience, I thnk you need to think about transitioning the kind of content you post.
The subject of writing is interesting to other writers and aspiring writers. They are not necessarily the readers you want, because there are not very many of them.
Crazy talk. There are millions of aspiring writers, and thus an industry to service them—several monthly magazines, a plethora of how-to books, seminars and conferences, over 100 degree-granting programs in the subject, etc.
Aspiring writers also tend to read more widely (and deeply) than non-aspirants. Aspiring writers are certainly a large audience worth cultivating.
Right, but the industry has an agenda of servicing them, which I kind of addressed when I talked about why I write about the subject.
Writers of fiction who want to build a larger audience for their fiction won’t do it by writing about writing in my opinion. I don’t see too many blogs about writing on the Technorati 100, for instance (although that’s not a great metric for sure).
But you’re right, I think I underestimate the size of the “aspiring writer” audience. After all, they seem to keep Asimov’s and Analog in business.
Writers of fiction who want to build a larger audience for their fiction won’t do it by writing about writing in my opinion.
They will in my authentic and lived experience.
Point taken. The way you write about writing is a hell of a lot more interesting than documenting your rejections and daily word counts.
I’ve always agreed that writing about writing is a turn-off (except when it’s for writers). When i started blogging i was determined never to do it; when i found i needed a public flogging-post to help my motivation, i did start something like a word-count blog*, but i don’t link to it or otherwise publicise it so people only happen upon it by chance — that’s still public enough to ‘shame’ me into carrying on.
* though not quite as bad as that!
Your readers only need to know when you have new work coming out. They don’t care how many agents turned you down, or how many rejections you gathered along the way before the sale.
I’d say they would be interested in that — even the non-writerly ones — when the new work is coming out. Before, it’s a faux pas, but after it’s definitely happening — definitely after it’s become a huge hit(!) — most people love to know how many times it was rejected.
And grammar — well, for us grammar geeks it’s no snoring matter. But those interested in grammar and those interested in writing don’t overlap greatly. In my experience it’s the linguists who are into grammar and all that stuff.
(Blogging about blogging is a whole other thing, of course. Plenty of people do that and are popular for it — among others who want to get big by blogging … an incestuous arena …)
I loved the barn swallow, btw. I hope you don’t move all the photography away from this blog, as i’m not likely to follow a web design blog.
Good points, yeah. And the grammar thing was a joke, really. Even grammar can be interesting when written about well.
Not going to move photography away from this blog. Advice for writers regarding the web/writing advice in general, web stuff-that’s what’s moving over. This will be more about me, my writing, and photography. A little more personal, a little less of this kind of stuff.
Hmmm… My journal posts are for my friends, mostly, and most of my friends who read my journal are writers. I don’t have an audience of readers like other writers do. As far as I can tell, my journal audience are other writers. Of course, I think most of them are much further along than I am in the game, so my posts may be like the scrawny little brother always trying to catch up to the big kids.
You n me both, Josh! (The little-bruv bit.)
And Jeremy — good. 80)
I would add to the list: bitching about your tour schedule. Of course it’s hard, and of course you’re tired, and dropping the occasional mild comment about “This is really hard and I’m really tired” is fine and perfectly understandable.
However, there is one author (I’m sure you’re not familiar with her) who I’ve dropped from my reading list for egregious abuse of travel complaints. Every time she’s sent on tour (which is often) her readers are subjected to several weeks of the same endless litany. We get it, okay? Business travel is hard. WE KNOW.
The complaints themselves are tedious enough. But I think it behooves any author who’s successful enough to be sent on tour to at least TRY and curb the whining. Just a little!
Most successfully-blogging authors seem to write about the travails of being on tour with a sort of wry, bemused detachment. Excellent models to follow!
So here’s a question. You wrote a blog post asking readers what they wanted to hear about. I followed part of it, but not all of it. Was some of it writing?
I do post about writing from time to time. I agree that if all a professional writer has to talk about is writing, that’s pretty boring. But some of it it is interesting even to me (when other people write about writing), and I’m sure more interesting to aspiring writers.
So I would say you’re partly right but not entirely– I think it’s fine for writing to talk about writing as long as they also have and share some life beyond writing.
WHO IS SERVICING WRITERS RIGHT AND LEFT? This must stop.
NO! DON’T STOP SERVICING WRITERS UNTIL I’VE HAD MY TURN!
[::grabs bottle of cheap plonk and waits by door::]
Just my two cents. I’m not a writer but I avidly follow the Twitter feed of ‘John Birmingham’. 140 characters once or twice a day has left me feeling like a friend rather than a customer. The little bites of information about his next story build an excitement for the next novel. The word counts and the count down to deadline show a certain kind of madness that exists in that sort of lifestyle.
Writers absolutely should not blog about writing if by “blog about writing” they really mean whinging about rejections, and how hard it is to write and why won’t those elitist editors recognise true genius.
If you can write something of real value, then you absolutely should. I’ve been enjoying your recent writing posts because they contain actual content. Keep it up.
Just don’t post your word count…
@Erika — There’s also bitching about the chore of writing the current book, or revising / proofing it, etc ad infinitum. O! to have people wanting me to finish those chores.
I love your website btw. Can’t decide which is my favourite page — the chicken sweaters, the binary hat… probably the voodoo swatches win. I’ll convert them for crochet!
@Dan Beeston — Twitter of course takes far less digesting than the average blog post, and one author’s whinge is diluted by everyone else’s tweets too. ‘Certain kind of madness’ — wot, us lot who scribble? ;0)
I like to read writers’ blogs. I’m interested in how they write and how they edit. I like to hear about the rejections, too, as long as it’s not a bitch session.
I used to watch Brian Lamb’s interviews with writers, and he usually asked how they write. Long hand, typewriter, or computer? Do you write and then edit, or do you edit as you write? Do you set a daily word limit or do you write when the muse dictates? I find these personal tidbits of writers fascinating.
I love the lit blogs. They tend to inject bits of news about their lives and families. That’s fine. However, I’m totally turned off when they swerve into politics. It’s their blog; they can do as they please. But when they get political, I leave and rarely return.
But that’s just me.
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Agree with this 100%. Well, 80%, because it’s fun to point out places that the MS Word grammar check goes hideously awry.
It’s certainly true some writers have blogs that do little more than provide word count and bland summaries of progress on current writing projects. It’s certainly true that these are very BORING.
I think the best thing one can do is provide interesting content for the target audience, about any subject. A good writer should be able to make writing a fascinating topic, if done well. Some writers don’t approach blogging like they do their fiction, however, where being boring is the kiss of death.
Some writers don’t approach blogging like they do their fiction — I’ve noticed this with poets in my local group, who are rarely poetic in their emails! ;0)