What's in it for you?

 

I saw this post over at Janet Reid’s blog the other day.  In it she lists ten things we should be doing.  The first one is what captured my attention.  She said we should have a website with contact info, a professional picture if we are published, and a sample of our writing.  All good.  But then she said if you have a blog don’t blog about writing.

I wonder if this is because, like starting a novel with someone waking up, it’s overdone.  Maybe agents are tired of checking blogs to find that as newbies we’re trying to teach ourselves to write by blogging about it.  It reminded me of this post over on Been Writing.  She says this 

Every time I put something totally random and scattered that spewed from my brain onto my computer screen, I get WAY more comments than when I do something that's actually writing related.

Then she said this

it's because we want to know there are people as neurotic as we are. And it's even better when they're worse

We blog because we want to connect to other writers.  Writing is solitary and it’s nice to have people who understand what’s going on.  You know, people who won’t pull out the strait jacket when you say things like “My MC and I were having a conversation and we decided….”  It’s nice to see how others write, and react to writing, and how it connects to their real life.  It’s nice to just see their random thoughts and musings.

 I know blogs are good for networking and I know a lot of people who have found long term crit partners and friends.  I’ve found some friends that have offered to be beta readers.  Which still surprises me.  I love my novel but it’s a little different for others to show so much excitement.  I mean, these are real people.  And they aren’t even related to me! 

So, what do you like to read about on a blog?  I’m very interested since I have one.  Although I’ll warn you up front, my home life is pretty boring.  Some days all I do is prepare food, serve food, and clean up food.  Those are weekdays.