Crunch Time

How many of you out there have blogs? Quite a few, I’m betting. How often do you update? What do you write about? How much hair have you torn out already, and how little do you have left?

Trust me, I’m with you. I’m on two blogs, and even with only weekly updates they’re still worth a handful of lost hair apiece. Half the time post day comes and I have no idea what to write about. I end up scraping the bottom of the inspirational barrel and pretty much throwing words at the page to see which ones stick. If I’m lucky, it’ll all make sense at the end.

Writing a blog is just like writing in general. Some days the words flow, some days they don’t. If the no-flow day is the same as your post day, you in a heap’a trouble.

Here’s where being a pantser comes in handy. I’m used to sitting down and frantically scribbling whatever pops into my mind with no clue about where I’m going. Luckily my best inspirations hit while I’m actually writing. The act itself stirs the creative soup and ideas bob to the surface. Next thing you know I’ve put in my thousand words or so, and I’m safe for another week.

I think this blog’s easier to write than the other one. Shapeshifter Seductions is more of a fiction blog, so those thousand words have to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. Try doing that in only a thousand words, every single week. Since I’m allegedly a professional writer, by this point I should be able to with only a minimum of hair loss. That isn’t always the case. The light bulb refuses to go on. Storylines peter out. I write myself into a corner. If you’ve ever wondered why I posted so late in the afternoon, it’s because it took me all damn day to come up with a flash scene. I should have taken art in school. Then I could just draw pictures.

Compared to that, this blog’s a breeze. I just sit at the keyboard and let my brain barf out whatever it wants to talk about. First, though, I have to kick my brain out of bed and get it to sit down with me. The advantage here is that whatever I post doesn’t have to follow fiction’s rules. It can be as long or short as the idea will run, and doesn’t necessarily have to say anything of significance.

Like today. I have nothing at all to say today, so I’m rambling. I had no topic for today’s blog, so I made that my topic. I’ve run off at the virtual mouth for about 500 words at this point, and said next to nothing of import. I should have been a Congressional speech writer.

Is this how it goes for you, fellow bloggers? Do the ideas fly at you like quills from a porcupine, or does your well consistently run dry? For that matter, how often do you update your blog? I’m struggling with once a week. If I had to update daily, I think I’d have a breakdown. Something tells me if I only updated monthly I’d still run into these problems. I’m not the fastest writer on the planet.

Of course, the easiest solution is to write more and get more books and stories out there. Then I can post updates and excerpts and promo pieces and never have to actually write anything. The downside to that plan is that, in order for it to work, I have to write that book in the first place so I'll have something to update, excerpt and promo. Then I run into the same problems I suffer coming up with ideas for the blog. Well, nobody ever said life was easy.

At the moment, over on the other blog, I seem to be writing a serial novel. Each week is a scene with the same characters, furthering the plot. I don’t know how long it’ll run or if I’ll ever finish it. Something else may grab me instead. In the meantime, hop on over to Shapeshifter Seductions (www.shapeshifterseductions.blogspot.com) every Monday for a new installment. Watch a book take shape before your eyes! When it’s done, you won’t even have to buy it because it’s all on there for free. That’s a deal you can’t beat with a stick, especially in this economy.

As for this blog, I just rambled on for almost 800 random words. Hope you enjoyed them. See y’all next week!