Inspired? Would you like to see your name on this website and your book up on those bookshop shelves? This is where we bring you a round up of writing tips, ideas and hints. | Favourite Authors' Blogs |
| by Ellen Bashford. The funny, the strange and the serious, but only the good. With the internet firmly securing its place as the latest, greatest communication system yet, one has to look at what is actually being written on it. I have never felt inclined to blog or Twitter, but apparently the need for anyone with a sale-able opinion (or any opinion for that matter) to have a strong ‘internet presence’ is growing. Dust covered, crumbling authors are being dragged from their tattered chairs, tight by a rad and propped up by a Mac to raise their fan base, and convince the world that they live, sentient. Writing about their daily lives, interests or on more than one occasion, love affairs. For the more glamorous, less crumbly authors, blogging sites have become a wonderful way to connect personally with their readers and widen their appeal. I once read a fairly desperate plea from a well-known author on her blog page, begging her readers to add her on Facebook so that she didn’t have to sequester to friendless humiliation. She now has over 15,000 ‘friends’! There are now so many thousands of blog pages out there, with anywhere from 5-50,000 readers, that the problem is unless you’ve been keeping up with the blogging world on a regular basis (say every two minutes) it’s easy to get lost amongst the countless websites that proffer a hundred odd of the ‘best blogs ever’. Or so they say. With that said, I have trawled through many sites such as http://www.internetwritingjournal.com and as many random author web pages as I could stand to read to find blogs that really are worth looking at whenever you find yourself ‘in-between’ books, and still want to have something to talk about at the dinner table. I’m judging these blogs on whether; 1. I understand what they’re talking about without having to scour the ‘archives’ for twenty minutes to find one tiny comment written by a reader five years ago, 2. Whether what they’re saying is actually appealing in any way and not a detailed account of their trip to the bank and, 3. If their blogs look good, because no one will read a blog that has more little words down the side than big words in the middle. Ditto anything with excessive amounts of moving pictures/boxes around things/links that look interesting but don’t work…etc. First and foremost are the funny ones. Mainly written by men, these blogs generally contain random articles about things either amuse or annoy them, and are very good for scanning through at work when you’re supposed to look like you’re doing something important, (just don’t laugh out loud). Gregg Hurwitz http://gregghurwitz.blogspot.com has a very action-man style blog containing stories about the adventures he has on the pretence of researching his books, but I found it pretty funny and the boyfriend/husband is likely to share this interest with you. Keith Thompson http://blubberybastard.tripod.com/blog writes the hilarious, albeit slightly strange, Gus Openshaw’s Whale Killing Journal. I need say no more than that, other than I do sincerely hope he catches the thing. Bill Crider’s http://billcrider.blogspot.com pop culture magazine is full of links to news articles that will make you giggle even if some of the humour is a little infantile. Paul Davidson’s http://www.pauldavidson.net words for my enjoyment is a cynical, yet quite truthful outlook on life which is very ‘grumpy old men’, precisely the reason you’ll love it, especially when he talks about the merits of banning pomegranates. John Walkenbach’s http://j-walkblog.com Jwalk blog, the subtitle being ‘stuff that may or may not interest you’ is just that. Although you’ll find a significant portion does. For more girly and slightly more upbeat fun, Meg Cabots’ – Diary http://www.megcabot.com/diary is as one would expect from an author who capitalizes excessively in her books. Flamboyantly witty, if aimed at younger women, she does seem to write mainly about certain popular T.V. shows, though this is very useful if you’ve missed an episode of Real Housewives. It also has possibly the greatest number of links to things I have ever seen on a website. Ever. Patti O’Shea’s blog http://www.pattioshea.blogspot.com is a quite amusing selection of short articles. She seems to focus primarily on her lack of ability to pick names for her characters/titles, even though she already has a flourishing writing career. There are of course, authors who take their blogging duties very seriously, especially if their books tend to follow this trend. These serious blogs can actually be quite informative and often you feel like the author has laid bare their soul for you to click on. Stephanie Klein’s Greek tragedy http://stephanieklein.com/greek is a very painful recollection of events in her life that have lead her to write her memoir books, which she is only now able to talk about freely with her readers. Another quite serious blog is that of Lee Goldberg http://leegoldberg.typepad.com/a_writers_life in A Writers Life. His blog makes a gentle read, although to be honest I only really got interested when I realized he wrote the Diagnosis Murder books – the T.V. series of which, I love. He also tends to spare no details so you might want to grab a coffee with this one. If your feeling particularly lazy or are a mono-genre reader, group blogs by authors of the same genre are worth a look at, and you also get to know the names of some authors you haven’t heard of, whose books you might like. The Lipstick Chronicles http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad.com are great if you enjoy a good sit down gossip with your girlfriends, because that’s essentially what it is. Think mother’s meeting, but with a rather sophisticated topic of conversation. In the more raunchy sense – Romancing the Blog http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog is even better, not solely for the fact that the covers of their books are down the sides and usually contain pictures of topless men, but imagine giving the Desperate Housewives girls their very own blog page, the topic obviously being hard-core romance/ drama. Yet, dip in and much like the acclaimed genre it’s a rather good guilty pleasure. Of course one has to look at the very famous authors that absolutely everyone has heard about. J. K. Rowling’s website http://www.jkrowling.com/en , whilst looking really good, only contains a diary in which she talks about why she hasn’t updated her website in so long, and then gives reasons. Although this is understandable because she’s J. K. Rowling. Stephenie Meyer’s http://www.stepheniemeyer.com only website also features a work related blog. So clearly the more famous you are, the less you communicate with those who are responsible for your fame. Finally, the rather full www.authorsblogs.com is an excellent place for aspiring writers to look, whatever genre. They have absolutely everything from supernatural erotica to musings about politics. These are writer’s who ‘write about blogging and blog about writing’, detailing how their work came into being. Whether published or not there are many ingenious and fabulous ideas for inspiration and encouragement for those tearing their hair out at chapter three. |
| Posted: 05/08/2009 10:34:16 Last Updated: 05/08/2009 11:00:05 |
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