To Blog Or Not To Blog...

I resolved to update this blog on a regular basis in 2013. So far, I am not doing well. I have, however, spent a great deal of time debating with myself if I should blog at all.

As writers, we are told that we must blog in order to build an audience or an 'author platform'. This is probably a valid concept. My issue is that there are 92.8 million writers who are blogging for mostly this reason alone. I know this because I read quite a few of them each day when I should be spending my time writing!

Don't worry... I'm sure this next part isn't about you!

The majority of the writers' blog posts deal with some 'cutting edge' topic, by which I mean a writing adage we have all heard a million times like 'Show Don't Tell' or 'Your characters have to be real!", and waste 500-1000 words telling us absolutely nothing new on the topic. That isn't to say there are not some very good blogs on writing, but the percentage of those is tiny. I don't blame the 99.5% of writing blogs that add nothing new, because if I did update my blog 2-3 times a week on the topic of writing I would be doing the exact same thing. But...

When I forward myself a link from my phone, open it up on my PC, spend 2 minutes reading it to find it is drivel I am often left feeling pretty stabby. The real crime is that they are spamming my twitter TL several times a day or many times a week advertising the same dreadful post. The biggest crime of all is when the blogger uses different snippets from the blog in their tweets so you cannot be sure if it is a post you've already wasted time on or some new rubbish!

So instead of adding to the noise level and being another 'not great' blog on writing, or worse a waste of writers' time, I am not going to update this blog regularly. I will continue to waste more of my time than I should reading bad blogs on writing, and when I read a good one I will retweet a link so you won't have to dredge through the sludge with me each day.

All that said, I will occasionally come back and bang out a piece here if there is something I feel I can add on a topic. Or something I feel passionately enough about to be the one spamming other peoples twitter feeds about several times a week. Thanks for wasting two minutes of your time here; now quit reading and starting writing!

Mandatory 2012 Recap

“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.” - Ray Kroc

I accomplished quite a few things this year, but I wish I had done more. Most of my 2012 was spent writing about zombies in one form or another. These are a few of the things I did with my writing time:

• Three of my short stories were published. Two in anthologies and one in a magazine.
• I finished in one of the top spots in two short story contests.
• Laid out the bones of a zombie novel that I will get written soon - I hope!
• Wrote several articles on zombie survival and training for a magazine.
• Cranked out most of a novella in a new genre. (Tons of research included)
• Studied screenplay writing and started work on a few collaborative screenplays.
• Outlined a new YA novel.

I think that is about it... other than spending November travelling in Europe and December dying of pneumonia. Looking back, a lot of 2012 was spent learning new genres and new formats. This year I want to spend more time actually putting words on paper. Here are the goals I am setting for myself in 2013:

• Publish the novella.
• Complete at least two screenplays.
• Finish first draft of my zombie novel.
• Write the YA novel.
• Update this Blog at least once a week.

That seems fairly ambitious, but if I can finish 4 of those 5 bullets that would give me a B for the year and I was always ok with getting Bs in school!