Friday, January 11, 2013

Behind the Scenes Timecrunch

I have a confession to make--I never quite understood why people would blog like crazy and then shortly after their books came out, STOP entirely. I bought the books because I liked the blog, and then they took away the blog, and that was kind of sad because why couldn't I have both, dammit!? It's funny seeing it from the other side. Not funny ha-ha, but funny ironic.

Part of it I guess I could have anticipated--I got burned out on blogging. By my count, I wrote about two or three books' worth of stuff on this blog before BAD TASTE IN BOYS came out. And there's only so much you can say about silliness and monsters before it starts to repeat. But some of it, I don't see how I could have anticipated. I didn't realize how long edits take. Or how many complete rewrites I'd do. I had no idea how much work was involved with arranging an appearance. I bit off more than I could chew.

I'm slowly learning how to manage this whole author thing. And one of the things I miss the most is getting to talk to you guys. That was one of my favorite things about blogging--talking back and forth with people. I'm not sure what the solution is. I know a lot of people have migrated to tumblr, since it's easier to reblog and like and comment and all the things, but I'd hate to lose all the old stuff here. And I do feel like my priority needs to be writing good books and getting out there and meeting people to talk about good books. (And there is some serious excitement going on behind the scenes, let me tell you. OH--also, if you're in Michigan, come say hi to me at ConFusion this year!) I thought about vlogging instead, but I'm an obsessive vlog editor, and I have this weird habit of blinking rapidly whenever I video myself. If I was an RPG character, one of my flaws would be "blinks under pressure."

Weird, right?

But there's a lot of awesome stuff going on behind the scenes here, and I really hope it pans out. And one of the side-effects of said awesome stuff will likely be that I will blog more. Hopefully you consider that a good thing.

And really, I need to do this. Because someone else has taken my top Google ranking for "batman eyebrows." THE TRAGEDY. We may have to have a Batman eyebrow week to remedy this situation. What other Google rankings should I attempt supremacy over?

6 comments:

Vikki said...

You should try to rank highest on google for The Hairy-Nosed Wombat Cha-Cha. Everyone will think it's the newest dance craze!!!!

Yay for more blogging. I've let my poor little blog collect dust, too. But when you have THE CHILDREN, they want, like, hugs and kitchen dance parties and quality LEGO time, so the free time I do get I use to write the books. Although I do use my blog to post pictures of myself with horrific hair. :)

K. M. Walton said...

I can relate to this post 100%. My poor blog has tumbleweeds the size of elephants blowing around.

I decided to blog when I felt like I had something to share, and if one person read it, so be it.

It is incredible how much changes once a book is out in the world.

Congrats on whatever your good news is!!

Marsha Sigman said...

I've gotten pretty horrible myself at blogging. But I try to post at least once a week. The thing I hate is not having enough time to visit everyone else's blog! Killin me! But glad to see you are still hanging in there.

I really hate it when authors stop blogging entirely after being published. Even just an update every once in a while is better than nothing.

Natalie Aguirre said...

I so struggle with the balance thing too. I spend too much time on the blogging and less time writing. I'm going to try to figure this out better this year.

I do think it's important to keep the blogging up to keep the contacts we work hard to develop.

A.L. Sonnichsen said...

Man, I'm not even published yet and my blogging has taken a nosedive. The ideas just aren't coming. I think it might be cyclical, though, and in another phase of the year I'll have the brainpower to devote to blog posts again. These times are when I remind myself that writing my books is more important than blogging -- and give myself a chill pill. :D

Larissa said...

Ha! I don't even have an agent yet, and I've gotten lax on the blogging. One of these days, I will invent a Time Turner! And ... I will still not blog consistently. But I will be well-rested! :P