My main character is keeping one I find it very useful in developing him and therefore writing my story. I thought I was it's only reader however when I didn't keep it one day I got emails lol So he is going to have to mention he is moving house over the next few weeks. I do want to develop it to more characters once I have moved and my life is more settled - my daughter is drawing pictures for me etc I don't know whether to increase it's popularity or not.
I can only respond with another question: What are you writing in the blog? Is it a techno-diary? Is it a place to store your writing? Is it where you just let your stream of consciousness go to see where it takes you? Is it a soapbox to profess to the world all of your ideas on how to fix everything you feel is wrong with the world? Is it a place just to bitch without the aforementioned ideas on how to resolve your gripes? Is it a place to boo-hoo? Is it a "hook-up" link? Is it an amorphous, undefined accumulation of all of the above?
In an interview at the end of the edition of American Gods I'm reading, Neil Gaiman says that he keeps his to stop people from expecting him to be his characters. Which is an interesting idea. I keep mine so I have somewhere to rant, and boast about my successes.
I don't have one. I was thinking about starting one and I would like to know what the benifits are. (if any) or are they just places to let off steam.
Yeah, I have a private blog where I just rant about my plots to an imaginary audience until new ideas occur to me. I also used to showcase little bits of my writing here and there for the limited but awesome audience I'd gathered, and I would sometimes just chat randomly about different aspects to being a writer... All of those things help. The first one especially... I guess people who do follow my blog don't think it updates very often.
Blogs can be whatever you want, but just remember this: Personal and proffessional do not mix. Anybody interested in your writing achievments, or the things you have to say about specific issues and topics, isn't going to trawl through your complaints about day to day occurrances just to find them. A blog must be one or the other, and it's better to create a separate blog than mix your non work-related thoughts with your proffessional ones. I abandoned an old blog because it was just a mess, and now my new blog is very well organised. Whenever I make complaints about life issues, I usually try and make them somehow writing related (because they usually are anyway) and make it into something interesting for passers by to read and comment on. Also, I stick these posts under my "general nonchalance" label, just to keep organised. I guess my blog is really a place to boast my successes and file stuff under headings, until something else worth commenting on pops into my mind. It's just a blog about my writing.
A disadvantage is the time required to maintain and keep a blog active. As was posted by Wreybies, it depends on the purpose for your blog, but if want/hope for people to read/follow/maintain interest, it's important to keep from having an inactive blog. Spotty activity--when there's so much else out there won't keep eyes or interest or interaction. If that has anything to do with why you're writing/maintaining a blog.
Thanks for your answers. I will need to put a bit more thought into to it. It does not seem a good idea to jump into it.
Just do a bit of looking around other people's blogs, and see what they do with them. It might give you some ideas.
I agree that if you want to write a blog, you need to post frequently if you want to keep your readers. That's just based on my own interest in blogs The ones I keep coming back to are the ones that post 4-5x a week. If it's been two weeks without a post, I'm going to stop checking in. I have a personal blog about parenting that I've kept for over three years. I only post about six times a month, and that feels like a lot to me. It's the reason I haven't started a writing blog yet. I don't think I would be able to keep it up.
