Thursday, January 22, 2009
Alas, Poor Yorick… To Blog Or Not To Blog, THAT Is The Question!
Nixon voice: "I am not a Luddite." Nevertheless, one of my resolutions for 2009 is to become the Contra Blogger. WhoooOOoooo! [ghost sounds] Be afraid!
I enjoy back-and-forthing with people and I’ll continue to post here as I’m able, especially sneak-peek cover art, advance news on the books, and fun writing tidbits — but therein lies the heart of my decision. There are only two things happening my life right now — my family and my writing — and I’m not interested in chatting intimately about my children on the net. Doing so would make me uncomfortable, which leaves only my writing, and, honestly, how much writing news can anyone take? “I sold this.” “I finished this.” “I’m wrestling with a subplot in Chapter 7 but I can’t tell you about it because it would involve spoilers and wouldn’t you really just rather read the book when it’s out?” Bleh.
Everyone should have a funny, insightful blog like John Scalzi. If I’m going to blog daily, his style and frequency would be my goal — and his readership. We all dream of such numbers, yes? But I can’t imagine where he finds the time to hit it so hard every day, day after day. John is a freaky supersize genius in the cabasa, of course. That helps! So does having only one well-grown kid. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t sleep. Ever.
Here’s the thing. John’s been at it for 10 years. He also benefited from the cross-pollination of writing big corporate-sponsored blogs during a lot of those years. If I could build a time machine, hop back to 1998, kidnap John, and hire MI6 to transplant my brain into his body, I’d do it. Or do I mean his brain into mine? Hmmm.
For my money, I see too many would-be or early-stage writers like myself investing oceans of sweat into their blogs, bleeding away their time in every effort to be entertaining, unique, and wise, straining just to earn one or two new readers each week... or month... or year.
I don’t get it. This is a tail-trying-to-wag-the-dog effort, especially for the would-be writers who have yet to sell anything. Quit goobling around on the net, people. I don’t even buy the argument that they’re honing their writing skills. Yes, I’ve seen blogs that include some well-crafted essays. Awesome. Most of it is fluff and dreck. If you want to write, you should be working on real, saleable material.
That’s just me. Playing my own devil’s advocate, let’s point out that I’ve never text messaged anyone in my life, don’t Twitter, don’t poke or wink or fill out superhero quizzes on Facebook. For a tech-minded science fiction guy, I’m a caveman. I correspond with a number of friends and other pros scattered around the world — email is kick-ass — but my real friendships are with the people I see regularly.
In the meanwhile, if I have time either to write my books or to doink around on my blog, which would you prefer? You prefer more books, I hope.
This is how committed I am to my family and my career: I don’t even read blogs except when I’m brushing my teeth at night. Crazy like a fox, that’s me. I put about four minutes into the net before bedtime. Even then, I only skim a few industry-related sites such as Nathan Bransford, Editorial Ass, and Scalzi’s Whatever. Yes, I consider Whatever an industry bellwether. Also, he makes me laugh with stuff like this.
Fortunately, it’s a rare day when these blogs actually have anything of interest to me such as this or Bransford’s sweet industry round-ups like this. Usually they’re covering subjects I already know, like query letters or awards lists, etc. I want to stay current, but I don’t have 20 minutes to doodle around every day, much less hours. I peek. I leave.
If you don’t have kids, you must think I’m crazy. (But I’m not. I’m colorful. That’s what happens to you when you live alone in Bolivia for ten years. You get colorful. Blam!) People who don’t have children are fundamentally incapable of grasping what a staggering time suck those gorgeous little monkeys can be. At the end of the day, childless people go home. Sure, they’re tired. Maybe they even feel busy because they need to hit the grocery store or the dry cleaner’s or write a few bills. For my wife and I, we go home (right, I know, I work at home) and another job begins. It doesn’t stop after the boys are in bed, either. There are always lunches to be made, laundry, cleaning, plus all of the normal stuff like groceries and dishes and bills — just more groceries to put away, more dishes to wash, and more bills to write for school or dentists or all those giant bags of food. Nor are the weekends any sort of end to the week. It’s relentless. Sports. Playdates. Everyone wants a piece of you for every freaking holiday you can imagine, and the grandparents especially are upset if you can’t be in two places at once.
I love it.
Having kids is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m a better person for it. No, I wasn’t a shovel-murderer before, but having kids has caused me to be more invested in the world, more selfless, and more focused. Man, I’m exhausted all the time, but I’m having a lot of fun running around non-stop.
It’s January 22nd. We haven’t even gotten our Christmas cards out yet. That’s not a joke. We haven’t done any yardwork since May. I have writing projects stacked up like air traffic over LAX. We’re two years behind on photo albums. (Yes, we’re so infatuated with our kids, we want hard copy photo albums with every ski ticket and train-ride pamphlet included. That’s parenting.)
So that’s my story. I only started this blog because my publicist at Ace begged me to get on the cutting edge. Increase your audience! Connect! She instructed me to jump onto every popular blog I could find and leave pithy comments and funny pictures and smiley faces. Network! Schmooze!
Uh, no?
When the heck was I going to write my next book? Shouldn’t I be doing that right now?
I think a lot of people gain a false sense of control or success from blogging. Sure, I want to be popular, too, and my ego is the size of a gray whale. Getting fan mail is outrageously cool. I love the sense of community in genre fiction. But I’m a writer, Jim, not a politician.
My energy goes into my books. They’re available in stores and on Amazon, and that’s why I got into this circus to begin with — to communicate through the novels, not the constant dissection of my writing process or my politics or the remarkable idiocy of my neighbors. (No, not you, Steve, I mean the other guys.) Short of finding 200 comments here imploring me to blog my brains out, I intend to trim it back to once or twice a week.
More soon!
I enjoy back-and-forthing with people and I’ll continue to post here as I’m able, especially sneak-peek cover art, advance news on the books, and fun writing tidbits — but therein lies the heart of my decision. There are only two things happening my life right now — my family and my writing — and I’m not interested in chatting intimately about my children on the net. Doing so would make me uncomfortable, which leaves only my writing, and, honestly, how much writing news can anyone take? “I sold this.” “I finished this.” “I’m wrestling with a subplot in Chapter 7 but I can’t tell you about it because it would involve spoilers and wouldn’t you really just rather read the book when it’s out?” Bleh.
Everyone should have a funny, insightful blog like John Scalzi. If I’m going to blog daily, his style and frequency would be my goal — and his readership. We all dream of such numbers, yes? But I can’t imagine where he finds the time to hit it so hard every day, day after day. John is a freaky supersize genius in the cabasa, of course. That helps! So does having only one well-grown kid. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t sleep. Ever.
Here’s the thing. John’s been at it for 10 years. He also benefited from the cross-pollination of writing big corporate-sponsored blogs during a lot of those years. If I could build a time machine, hop back to 1998, kidnap John, and hire MI6 to transplant my brain into his body, I’d do it. Or do I mean his brain into mine? Hmmm.
For my money, I see too many would-be or early-stage writers like myself investing oceans of sweat into their blogs, bleeding away their time in every effort to be entertaining, unique, and wise, straining just to earn one or two new readers each week... or month... or year.
I don’t get it. This is a tail-trying-to-wag-the-dog effort, especially for the would-be writers who have yet to sell anything. Quit goobling around on the net, people. I don’t even buy the argument that they’re honing their writing skills. Yes, I’ve seen blogs that include some well-crafted essays. Awesome. Most of it is fluff and dreck. If you want to write, you should be working on real, saleable material.
That’s just me. Playing my own devil’s advocate, let’s point out that I’ve never text messaged anyone in my life, don’t Twitter, don’t poke or wink or fill out superhero quizzes on Facebook. For a tech-minded science fiction guy, I’m a caveman. I correspond with a number of friends and other pros scattered around the world — email is kick-ass — but my real friendships are with the people I see regularly.
In the meanwhile, if I have time either to write my books or to doink around on my blog, which would you prefer? You prefer more books, I hope.
This is how committed I am to my family and my career: I don’t even read blogs except when I’m brushing my teeth at night. Crazy like a fox, that’s me. I put about four minutes into the net before bedtime. Even then, I only skim a few industry-related sites such as Nathan Bransford, Editorial Ass, and Scalzi’s Whatever. Yes, I consider Whatever an industry bellwether. Also, he makes me laugh with stuff like this.
Fortunately, it’s a rare day when these blogs actually have anything of interest to me such as this or Bransford’s sweet industry round-ups like this. Usually they’re covering subjects I already know, like query letters or awards lists, etc. I want to stay current, but I don’t have 20 minutes to doodle around every day, much less hours. I peek. I leave.
If you don’t have kids, you must think I’m crazy. (But I’m not. I’m colorful. That’s what happens to you when you live alone in Bolivia for ten years. You get colorful. Blam!) People who don’t have children are fundamentally incapable of grasping what a staggering time suck those gorgeous little monkeys can be. At the end of the day, childless people go home. Sure, they’re tired. Maybe they even feel busy because they need to hit the grocery store or the dry cleaner’s or write a few bills. For my wife and I, we go home (right, I know, I work at home) and another job begins. It doesn’t stop after the boys are in bed, either. There are always lunches to be made, laundry, cleaning, plus all of the normal stuff like groceries and dishes and bills — just more groceries to put away, more dishes to wash, and more bills to write for school or dentists or all those giant bags of food. Nor are the weekends any sort of end to the week. It’s relentless. Sports. Playdates. Everyone wants a piece of you for every freaking holiday you can imagine, and the grandparents especially are upset if you can’t be in two places at once.
I love it.
Having kids is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m a better person for it. No, I wasn’t a shovel-murderer before, but having kids has caused me to be more invested in the world, more selfless, and more focused. Man, I’m exhausted all the time, but I’m having a lot of fun running around non-stop.
It’s January 22nd. We haven’t even gotten our Christmas cards out yet. That’s not a joke. We haven’t done any yardwork since May. I have writing projects stacked up like air traffic over LAX. We’re two years behind on photo albums. (Yes, we’re so infatuated with our kids, we want hard copy photo albums with every ski ticket and train-ride pamphlet included. That’s parenting.)
So that’s my story. I only started this blog because my publicist at Ace begged me to get on the cutting edge. Increase your audience! Connect! She instructed me to jump onto every popular blog I could find and leave pithy comments and funny pictures and smiley faces. Network! Schmooze!
Uh, no?
When the heck was I going to write my next book? Shouldn’t I be doing that right now?
I think a lot of people gain a false sense of control or success from blogging. Sure, I want to be popular, too, and my ego is the size of a gray whale. Getting fan mail is outrageously cool. I love the sense of community in genre fiction. But I’m a writer, Jim, not a politician.
My energy goes into my books. They’re available in stores and on Amazon, and that’s why I got into this circus to begin with — to communicate through the novels, not the constant dissection of my writing process or my politics or the remarkable idiocy of my neighbors. (No, not you, Steve, I mean the other guys.) Short of finding 200 comments here imploring me to blog my brains out, I intend to trim it back to once or twice a week.
More soon!
Labels: Contra Blogger, Jeff Carlson
Comments:
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hey man- - can't say I disagree with the logic, though seeing less of you will suck. And I find myself thinking along similar lines in allocating my own time: realistically, imho quality of a blog has much less to do with that blog's success than when the blog got started. I love Scalzi--and his blog IS great--but he could (and probably has) put a picture of his dishwasher up there, and the number of comments would proceed to rival the # of words in War and Peace.
If it is not fun, don't do it. Life and time are too short anyway. Wait thirty or so years and then you will have something to whine about. Don't sweat the small stuff.
*pokes her feed reader*
Oh, sweet, anther missive from Jeff!
*reads*
You know, for what it's worth, I'm always about interacting with the technology at a level that you're (a) comfortable with and (b) has time for. I mean, the blog's been pretty awesome, and I'm always cheerful when I see that there's another missive from Jeff on the feed reader. You've been consistently awesome in that regard. But if I had to choose between Ketchup and more awesome books? That's not even a contest.
Hell, even John Scalzi does the occassional "Look, I'm kinda busy. Don't expect posts from me until such and such a date." Most of your readers, we understand that your first job is to write, and your other first job is to be as awesome a dad as you can be. Blogging? That's somewhere down about ninety-ninth on the priority list. I like it as a way for you to let us know what's going on -- book's been scheduled, book came out, you're going to be somewhere for a reading, David Brin says you're the most awesome author he's ever worked with -- you know, the important stuff. ;)
I think you're doing the right thing, Jeff. But I'm just this geek out here who gets distracted by all the shiny. :)
-kat
Oh, sweet, anther missive from Jeff!
*reads*
You know, for what it's worth, I'm always about interacting with the technology at a level that you're (a) comfortable with and (b) has time for. I mean, the blog's been pretty awesome, and I'm always cheerful when I see that there's another missive from Jeff on the feed reader. You've been consistently awesome in that regard. But if I had to choose between Ketchup and more awesome books? That's not even a contest.
Hell, even John Scalzi does the occassional "Look, I'm kinda busy. Don't expect posts from me until such and such a date." Most of your readers, we understand that your first job is to write, and your other first job is to be as awesome a dad as you can be. Blogging? That's somewhere down about ninety-ninth on the priority list. I like it as a way for you to let us know what's going on -- book's been scheduled, book came out, you're going to be somewhere for a reading, David Brin says you're the most awesome author he's ever worked with -- you know, the important stuff. ;)
I think you're doing the right thing, Jeff. But I'm just this geek out here who gets distracted by all the shiny. :)
-kat
# posted by 
: January 22, 2009 at 8:34 PM
: January 22, 2009 at 8:34 PM
You guys are awesome. Thanks.
Dave, I think you're right on both counts -- greatness and age -- but Scalzi's *consistent* greatness is the big thing. I marvel at how much effort he's putting into it; he's like the Harriet Klausner of bloggers; it's like a part-time job in and of itself, and obviously a very succesful one.
Sherry, the funny part is that blogging *is* very fun, and I *do* get a small, welcome sense of control from the process, even a feeling of success... but the reality is that I really don't to be juggling anything else right now and it's far more important to hit my deadlines, right? :)
Kat, David Brin said I was the most awesome writer ever???? :P
Dave, I think you're right on both counts -- greatness and age -- but Scalzi's *consistent* greatness is the big thing. I marvel at how much effort he's putting into it; he's like the Harriet Klausner of bloggers; it's like a part-time job in and of itself, and obviously a very succesful one.
Sherry, the funny part is that blogging *is* very fun, and I *do* get a small, welcome sense of control from the process, even a feeling of success... but the reality is that I really don't to be juggling anything else right now and it's far more important to hit my deadlines, right? :)
Kat, David Brin said I was the most awesome writer ever???? :P
Who the heck is John Scalzi???
Jeff, I just want to hear from you when you have something interesting to say about your writing career. (Nothing personal, I'm sure you're kids are cute as buttons, but mine are of course much cuter -- even though they're both old enough to be your younger siblings!) Seriously, the only blogs I go to are writers I know personally, one for the inspiration, and two because I like following the careers of talented people I know personally.
(I'm the guy who prefers to see less famous musicians in concert because the crowds are smaller and the entertainment is more intimate. I love Aerosmith, but I much rather see Al Stewart performing in a pub than a big rock band from two football fields away!)
Afghan Joe
Jeff, I just want to hear from you when you have something interesting to say about your writing career. (Nothing personal, I'm sure you're kids are cute as buttons, but mine are of course much cuter -- even though they're both old enough to be your younger siblings!) Seriously, the only blogs I go to are writers I know personally, one for the inspiration, and two because I like following the careers of talented people I know personally.
(I'm the guy who prefers to see less famous musicians in concert because the crowds are smaller and the entertainment is more intimate. I love Aerosmith, but I much rather see Al Stewart performing in a pub than a big rock band from two football fields away!)
Afghan Joe
# posted by : January 23, 2009 at 8:09 AM
: January 23, 2009 at 8:09 AM
Jeff:
What I was trying to say is this: If David Brin ever *does* say a thing like that, I expect a post in your blog. ;)
That's all.
-kat
What I was trying to say is this: If David Brin ever *does* say a thing like that, I expect a post in your blog. ;)
That's all.
-kat
# posted by : January 23, 2009 at 10:07 AM
: January 23, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Joe, your kids look like sun-shriveled troll poop compared to my little gods. :P
Kat, I'm teasing you too and deliberately misread your post... although I *am* the most awesome writer David's ever worked with. Ha. Btw, there's some good news on *that* front as soon as I can post it.
Kat, I'm teasing you too and deliberately misread your post... although I *am* the most awesome writer David's ever worked with. Ha. Btw, there's some good news on *that* front as soon as I can post it.
Think of the blog as news updates and post 'em when you got 'em.
The other bit of wisdom I offer: photo boxes. Photos go in plastic slots, dated. Neat, organized, space-saving. Albums are bulky; take much time. Maybe some day when the boys are in college you'll want to organize the pix into albums. They'll all be in one place, chronological. And you'll look and say, "Why'd we keep all this cr*p?"
When you have all the photos in the photo box, you can take a photo of THAT and post it. HA!
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The other bit of wisdom I offer: photo boxes. Photos go in plastic slots, dated. Neat, organized, space-saving. Albums are bulky; take much time. Maybe some day when the boys are in college you'll want to organize the pix into albums. They'll all be in one place, chronological. And you'll look and say, "Why'd we keep all this cr*p?"
When you have all the photos in the photo box, you can take a photo of THAT and post it. HA!
# posted by : January 24, 2009 at 10:13 AM
: January 24, 2009 at 10:13 AM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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