I just read this article on Tor.com over at SFDiplomat. For those of you not “in the know”, Tor has launched a kind of social networking site for fandom, which features articles and short fiction written by their authors.

I think it’s a wonderful idea. A sci-fi publisher has taken their website from a boring, static webpage and turned it into something dynamic that might draw people to the site. This is something along the lines of what Baen’s been doing for quite some time with their magazine Baen’s Universe and their free fiction archive. It’s Web 2.0, and I think it’ll help to boost Tor’s profile.

Jonathan McCalmont disagrees, and while I won’t rehash his arguments here, basically he comments on “over-exposed” authors like John Scalzi blogging on the site. First off, is John Scalzi under any obligation whatsoever to not try and promote himself like any other author simply because his blog is immensly popular? I mean, seriously, is McCalmont arguing that Scalzi should just say, “hey, look, I’m popular enough, I don’t need to self-promote?” Really, Jonathan? Really?

In any case, read the comments section where Scalzi responds. The man is a bulldog, and a very well spoken bulldog at that. It’s worth the read.

Tags: john scalzi, Johnathan McCalmont, Tor.com

Alright. Welcome to the blog (again).

EDIT: As you can tell, I’ve managed to recover the old content of the blog (minus the pictures). Thank goodness for multiple backups!

I had to move servers, and predictably, I downloaded all the files from my server, but forgot to backup the database. So, we’re starting fresh.

One of the reasons that I stopped blogging is that I’m not convinced that beginning author should keep a blog. Frankly, it seems like if you’re going to be writing, you should be writing fiction, i.e. work that will be increasing your reputation. Writers may point to prolific bloggers like John Scalzi or Diablo Cody who have been discovered through their blogs, but not only does the exception NOT prove the rule, but these bloggers also had other “hooks” to draw people to their blogs. Scalzi was a pro-blogger for AOL in the stone age when no one was blogging, and Diablo Cody was a stripper and that’s what her blog was about.

Unless you have a “hook”, it’s better off, in my opinion, not to join the teeming millions on Live Journal, or WordPress, or Blogger–writers whose blogs have one or two readers, and generally poor content. People just aren’t interested in reading about the local coffee hut. If you are currently one of these writers, be honest with yourself. How is this helping your writing career. No cheats now, nothing ephemeral like, “It’s getting my name out there”. List concrete things that your blog will do for you. If you can’t, take the time you used to use for blogging, and use it to write more fiction.

So, why am I blogging now? I have a hook.

I recently won first place in Writers of the Future. Much of this blog will be devoted to my participation in that contest and my thoughts on winning it. If you’re not familiar with Writers of the Future, I’ll cover the contest in a later post. For now, I’ll simply direct you to the website of award-winning writer David D Levine, whose Writers of the Future page is one of the best resources on the contest that I’ve seen.

Right now, I’m a writer at the cusp of going pro. Hopefully, I can share with you, my gentle readers, how I plan to take my next steps into the markets.

EDIT: This topic was generating quite the discussion, so I’ve elaborated on my thoughts on blogging for new writers here.

Tags: blogging, David D Levine, Diablo Cody, john scalzi, Writers of the Future