Comments on: A Little Help…?

By: Simon Haynes

Simon Haynes — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:22:09 +0000

The most visited post on my blog is about happy toast, closely followed by the ’stalking Ben Elton’ one.

Oddball is good, but not too often. I think the occasional humour grenade in an otherwise straight blog is good.

By: Edwin McRae

Edwin McRae — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 02:02:20 +0000

I think the fastest way to give yourself stage fright, performance anxiety, or literary tongue bondage, is to try to second guess what other people find interesting. Half the time they don’t know what they find interesting either. Just write about what does it for you and let the audience take it from there.

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:43:19 +0000

Oh, and I was so impressed!

By: Charlie Finlay

Charlie Finlay — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:39:09 +0000

Karen, all the good parts belong, I am positive, to e. e. cummings, whose poem I stole to make this one.

By: Sarah Prineas

Sarah Prineas — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:31:09 +0000

So let me see if I’ve got this right. A good blog has:

Humor
Pictures of fridge
Star Wars lego (gets two votes!)
Veiled snark
Publishing news from respected sources!
Interesting and different (uh oh)
Something I’m passionate about (hmmm)
Adventure (with pictures, like Carrie!)

Okay. Got it. So my plan next week will to blog about cats, the weather, writing, and Star Wars Lego…in rhymed couplets, with pictures (though not necessarily of fridge)!!

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:01:50 +0000

I tend to blog about my reaction to publishing news. GalleyCat is good for that, also, the NY Times, and the Guardian Unlimited (UK paper) Books section. You don’t just parrot back what you read, though. You only comment if it moves you.

I liked Charlie’s poem! He seems to have quite a poetic streak lately.

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:11:21 +0000

Well, I decided we never seem to have any science in our science fiction here at sfnovelists (and yes, I know s = speculative, but still), so I have my niche. People interested in sceince fiction are interested in science, often enough, so given that there are a lot of posts here concerning the writing/publishing process, I’m going to do something different and less incestuous.

Find your niche where you can consistently be interesting and different from everyone else.

By: Charlie Finlay

Charlie Finlay — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:15:50 +0000

sonnet entitled how to run your blog)

A always don’t there B being no such thing
for C constant updates instead D drink and

E eat of your voice in whose music the machinery of spring
lives F feel open because readers understand
G good reads sometimes instead of less

with every least post most remembering
H happy the day you lighten their slog

(sestet entitled words are flesh or swim
in ink and dare to pixel any dream:
laugh means more than snore, silence less than guess)

I item you immaculately owe
sfnovelists one day and will your weeks to these

children building a rainman out of snow

By: Greg van Eekhout

Greg van Eekhout — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:03:57 +0000

Show us an annotated picture of what’s in your fridge.

By: Deb

Deb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:52:10 +0000

I have no useful advice because lately I’ve been a much more intermittent blogger than you are. Plus, the only topics I seem to have blogged on in the last year or so are dogs and writing (which, dogs–always an awesome topic, but since you don’t have one it might be tricky to pull off).

The things that make the best blog post are things people are passionate about to the point where they want to share that passion with other people. So, what are you passionate about?