It’s true. Blog writing is the bane of my existence (which is a terrible opening line if I want you to read this blog post). But damn, it feels great to get that off my chest.
One solution–the easiest–would be to stop writing them altogether, yet I’m hesitant. My author blog not only challenges me to write beyond my comfort zone, but it also connects me with fans of my books, potential fans of my books, and other writers. I would be foolish to sever that tie now.
Fortunately, another solution has recently landed it my lap, and it’s going to be a game changer for this blog and my sanity.
But first, I’ll start with a question for anyone who has ever had to write ANYTHING, be it a high-school history report or an email to your friend: Are you a fast writer? Or does the Earth have to make a trip around the sun before you’re satisfied with what you’ve written?
As a card-carrying member of the latter group, I’m embarrassed to admit that I once spent half an hour composing one Facebook comment. Yes, a comment! Not even a post. It has everything to do with a debilitating fear of being wrong, or more accurately, being called out for being wrong. In public. For the whole world to see.
Which is why I love writing fiction.
People rarely criticize fiction writers for trying to pass off time travel or interstellar war or a boy with wizardly powers as fact. Quite the opposite. They are encouraged to stretch truths and tinker with known conventions. An extremely talented writer might even convince a reader there’s an ancient, shape-shifting entity from outer space living under the city that feeds on the fears and flesh of children. And it would probably take the form of an evil clown called Pennywise.
Even the Master of Horror has to do some research to make his stories believable.
And like Stephen King, I want my books to resonate with both casual and discerning readers. Thus, I’ve had to fact-check all sorts of weird things: What kind of sedative will knock someone out for an hour? Is it possible to skydive from a commercial airplane? And What’s that distinct smell after a rainfall called? Get those facts wrong, and readers will be quick to point it out in a review.
This is why I find blog writing difficult. Blogs are informative pieces, so they ought to be well researched, and in case you haven’t guessed, I find research tedious. This is not to say I don’t do it. I just don’t enjoy doing it.
It wasn’t always this way.
At the beginning, I was pumping out a post every week. I still can’t believe it. Unfortunately, it came at the expense of my then work-in-progress, TimeBlink, which I’d abandoned like an unloved son.
When I could ignore the cries of my neglected child no more, I reduced my posts to monthly. It was freeing, but that menacing cloud still hung overhead. If you’ve never run an author business and a blog concurrently, you might think: Come on. How hard can it be to come up with twelve articles a year? But when you’re trying to finish your next book and being distracted by all the frippery that comes with self-publishing, the very thought of writing one more 1200-word essay can crush your creative spirit.
I had to take a serious look at dumping my blog for good.
But not before I went on one last fact-finding mission. It was when I typed “I hate writing blogs” into the search bar that I stumbled on a post by thriller writer, Carter Wilson, who’d reported wonderful success extracting portions of his monthly newsletter and turning them into blog posts a couple of weeks after his subscribers had benefitted from the content.
Freaking. Brilliant.
He’d already written the content, shared it with his loyal subscribers, then reconstituted it in a later blog post. I’ll say it again: Brilliant! Carter’s concept made such an impression on me that I contacted him immediately to let him know I was stealing his idea and giving him full credit for it in my next post. So, here we are. Thanks, Carter!
♻️ ♻️ ♻️
Granted, I’ll still have to fact-check (at the time of this writing, I’m researching AI art generators for an upcoming newsletter), but I’ll only have to do the research ONCE. My subscribers will get a bite-sized teaser in my newsletter and then I’ll post a more detailed article on my blog. Cross-posting is huge on social media, so why wouldn’t it work in this arena too?
Thinking back to my past newsletter content, this might include book recommendations, top-10 lists, a peek behind the scenes of a writer, and informative book-related pieces. Of course, I’ll be saving the contests, surveys, book deals, and insider information for my subscribers; there has to be some benefit for them signing up.
What do you think? Is it a cop-out? Or a smart use of time? Drop me a comment, especially if you’re a writer who struggles with this too. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
And if you’d like to follow my writing journey, you can sign up for my newsletter here. As mentioned, subscribers get all the juicy stuff not available to the public. Hope to see you there!
Be sure to check out Carter Wilson’s latest release, The New Neighbor, a page-turning psychological thriller about Aidan Marlowe, a man who wins a huge lottery jackpot the day of his wife’s funeral. Desperate to start a new life, he packs up his 7-year-old twins and moves to a giant house in a whole new town. Before long, he learns someone is watching them. Someone who knows everything about them.
I’m halfway through the story and can’t wait to find out what happens to Marlowe, his two children, and his lawyer, Maya, who’s been helping him navigate his newfound wealth.
By the way: the earthy smell that accompanies rain after a stretch of hot, dry weather is called petrichor.