Good Advice

Last night, my dear wife made an observation about blogging in regard to the love/hate relationship a fellow blogger has with the medium that struck me as sound advice for any writer who also blogs. There are probably loads of people out there who pursue blogging from this angle, but I have not. Shame on me.

The great insight was this: A blog is a great way to do what adherents of the book Writing Down the Bones call the daily pages. As my wife pointed out, this used to be known as keeping a journal.

One of the hardest things about writing is doing it every day. There are always excuses to be made: I'm so busy. I need to give time to my family. I want to see the chick with the wooden leg on Dancing with the Stars. Ironically, one of the best ways to keep on track with any creative writing project is to do other kinds of writing as well. Truman Capote liked to start his day with correspondence. Many other writers are known for their journals--some of them better know for their journals than anything else.

Blogging is, of course, the modern form of journaling. To use it consciously as such is only sensible. And that is what I am going to try to do.

I wouldn't expect the contents of this blog to change much, since I've never been much prone to confession either online or in the various journals I've kept over the years. With any luck, the kind of nonsense that I've gotten by with for several years now will just appear more frequently.

In further news, Chapter One of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy has been closed down for viewing after its two-week run. We'll find out next Tuesday whether Chapter Two will go up or not. If it does, that will give me something to journal about next week. If not, I'll just begin the search for an agent.