How many 'writer' blogs do you read? It's an interesting question. When I set up this blog to keep a separate thread for my writing (so it doesn't get lost among my ranting and folklore gathering and other daft stuff) I sought out several other writers: put links to their blogs onto mine; made regular comments on their posts. But did any of them reciprocate?
Well yes, to be fair, some of them did. There are some great people out there, published and hopeful, who interact, respect what others are doing and offer support when necessary. And then there's the rest.
Let's call them the also-rans. The ones who describe themselves as writers and use all the right publisher jargon and stress how important it is to : 'Edit. Edit. Edit.' I've noticed that most of their posts are about themselves, either self congratulatory (I've written 300 wonderful words today) or self derogating (oh poor me I'm struggling over this character's motivation. With the subtext 'massage my ego'). Most of them are full of basic errors too.
They write about writing, rather than actually getting on with their novel/short story/poem/whatever. And they never visit anyone else's blog unless it's absolutely necessary. Then, as soon as they find out you can't forward their careers, they're off like a shot to butter up someone who can.
Now I'm not talking about the occasional 'I've finally got myself an agent' 'Hey I've had a story published' 'At last I've finished editing that 500,000 word novel I've been working on for three years' posts. I mean, well done guys. I'm pleased for you.
I'm talking about why someone thinks I'm interested in every cough, spit, delete, change of direction or tea break along the way. OK, so NaNoWriMo gets very self-centred, but it's just for a month and then everyone shuts up. (Most people shut up.) It doesn't go on every day, all year!
So I'm whittling out some of the links that have been less than interactive. And I promise to make more effort to support the people who ARE decent and friendly.
3 comments:
There are lots of blogs on writing your memoirs and they are even worse. I blame it all on the invention of the word processor, before that came along, you had to really slog to get a few hundred words down in some kind of readable form, since WPs came along, everyone is writing away like mad believing they will be the next J K Rawlings.
Eeek - I see one of my sites is still on your list (look at me!!) and I know I went on about my NaNo far past the sell-by date ... but yes, the folk who never comment, on many other places than here are legion ... and incredibly bad-mannered in my opinion. Thye can't ALL be shrinking violets but must lack something which allows one to understand the necessity for reciprocation.
Hi Anne .. I've always been 'agitated' about commenting/linking etc to too many writerly blogs - because I'm not one. Thankfully I decided to do different and how grateful I am for that ..
Still separating the wheat from the chaff can be tricky at times ..
Love your stories from the past .. cheers Hilary
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