Tags
I suppose that one of these days I should sit down and figure out what my blog is really all about. I don’t seem to have a theme but do I really need one? If I were going to convert my blog someday into book format sometime in the future, than yes, I would need a theme or a common thread. I started thinking about this because I am about 3/4’s finished with my novel and before we know it, November will be here with Thanksgiving and nanowriting month and where am I going to find the energy to produce 50,000 more words. I immediately latched onto my blog, I have been writing faithfully everyday since Dec. 30th 2010 so I have a lot of words saved up, if I could put them together, I bet there are 50,000 in sum. Am I being lazy? I don’t know. I do know that my present novel is writing itself and by that I mean, I have an outline but my character likes to talk a lot and describe food a lot, so I write and write. I still have to throw her out of France and get her to the States but she is having a picnic with her lover on the roadside and they are presently lounging on the ground digesting their first class picnic complete with a bottle of Cote du Rhone. Get thee to N.Y. young Madeleine!
One of these days I am going to go through my past writings to see is I can thread them together into a word quilt if you will and see where that leads me, November is coming and I don’t know if I have the intestinal fortitude for another novel. I do have stories. I don’t know if I have a sequel to Madeleine, but you never know. I’ll figure something out.
laurieanichols 
I have thought for a while – and please don’t take this the wrong way, as it is not a criticism, but an observation based on my own experience – that you could do with two blogs: one for the political; one for the personal. I never read the political stuff because it is not relevant to me, being outside of America.
Any time you post, you are excluding half your audience. I’m sure there are plenty of people who read both, but many won’t. I had the same problem with my blog, when I was posting poetry. I thought people who came to my blog for one thing would be enticed to read the other. It never happened. I was putting people off. My numbers only really started to rise when I separated the two.
The great thing about blogging is that it constantly evolves. You have been blogging for quite a while now; you must have a feeling for what works and what doesn’t. I try things – e.g. polls, comment of the week – for a while; if I see they’re not working, I move on to something else. I stay true to myself but consider my audience.
There’s nothing to stop you posting your book once in a while in your personal blog – not the political blog, unless you write a political book – just like I throw in the occasional serious post; but I think you should definitely separate the political and personal – I am sure you will see a rise in stats when you do.
Think about it: if you leave a comment on a political blog and they visit and see a personal post, they will be polite and leave a comment back, probably, but won’t return, because the personal is not in their field of interest. Same for a personal blogger who might find a political post.
If you have two blogs, you can comment under the appropriate one, and see a rise in hits on both blogs because people with similar interests will return. That’s what happened to me.
Great advice!! I really appreciate it and I will do it because there is nothing to lose and easy to do. Thanks a lot Tilly!
My pleasure! The great thing about blogging is that it’s easy to help people, whether with advice, encouragement or regular hits – all of which you have given me in the past.