No, I’m not plotting. I promise.
But as I’ve been thinking about the direction of Murder She Writes, I can’t help but think to do this right, I should have a loose idea of what I want to accomplish.
1) Nurture and grow the community that is already here.
2) Write blogs that interest both me and my readers.
3) Provide a forum to talk about things that interest me and my readers.
I have a few interviews scheduled with fun and exciting authors; I will of course talk weekly about television or movies. But I want to know: are you interested in a weekly blog about writing? For example, I have a partial draft of a blog about character motivation. I was too tired to finish it now, but plan to post it later this week or early next week. Is this something you’d like to see more of?
What about excerpts? Complete short stories? My misadventures as a mother of five? Interviews with authors? Industry folks (agents/editors)?
I suppose I’m looking for guidance. Of course I’m not going to blog about anything I don’t want to … I’m 44. While I’m not as old as my grandmother was when she died–where she was old enough to say whatever she wanted to whoever she wanted!–I’m getting to the point where I really just want to do what I want to do … which is playing with my kids and writing. 🙂 But I like blogging, and I like talking. So what do you want me to write about? If it’s something I’m even remotely interested in, I’ll blog about it 🙂
On another note … get prepared for May! I’m donating a lunch to Brenda Novak’s Diabetes Auction. Meaning — if you’re going to be at Thrillerfest in NYC or RWA in San Antonio, you can (and should!) bid on a lunch with me. You get to bring 3 friends! There will be fun, and there will be free books, and there will be drinking 🙂 The auction runs the entire month of May, and it’s for a very good cause.
So. Tell me what you want to know, now or in the future. I’m an open book 🙂
Allison Brennan is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of nearly three dozen romantic thrillers and mysteries, including the Lucy Kincaid series and the Max Revere series. She lives in Northern California with her husband, five children, and assorted pets.
Any and all of the above sound good to me, Allison. I know that’s not really helpful, but it’s the truth. =o)
LOL — thank you! 🙂
Yes. One of the things I always loved about MSW was the variety. Even though you will be solo blogging (sort of) I think keeping the variety is good.
Would you be interested in posting book reviews on occassion? (hint, hint)
Thanks Toni — I don’t know how much variety with just me, but I have some fun ideas about guests. Book reviews … maybe. I don’t like posting anything critical about fellow authors. If I don’t like something, I’m just not going to say anything. But if you’re talking about Betty … maybe we can try it for awhile!
What about excerpts? Complete short stories? My misadventures as a mother of five? Interviews with authors? Industry folks (agents/editors)?
All of the above – you have a lovely ‘blog voice’ and I enjoy reading what you write! 😀
Thanks Willa! I was thinking of posting some of my short-short stories here, like one a month. They’re 5-7K words and it might be fun to share them.
I’d love to get a peek at your process–whether plotting or character development. I suppose that could be considered “craft”, which appeals to the writer-me, but I’m also a reader-fan of your work and I’d like insight into the reasons you decided to go a particular direction or insights into a character. 😀
And then, like B.E., all of the above that you mentioned. Also, thanks for the reminder about Brenda’s auction. I need to contact her about donating! (I’ll also be bidding on that lunch!)
I love writing about writing. I tried to steer away from it a bit because I want readers to visit the blog as much as fellow writers, but I really love talking about STORIES. I think that’s why I love blogging about television and movies, because I see the writing is such an important part of the success of a show (like CASTLE!)
Are you interested in a weekly blog about writing? NO
What about excerpts? YES
Complete short stories? YES
My misadventures as a mother of five? ABSOLUTELY
Interviews with authors? YES
Industry folks (agents/editors)? UNSURE
Thanks for keeping the blog going Allison.
Thanks for your input! I’m getting excited about the redesign, it’s being tweaked, so I’m not making any final decisions until I get it up and running 🙂 I’ll likely have a writing blog, but I’m probably going to have a set day … like Writer Wednesday or Craft Weekend or something like that 🙂
I agree with all of the above! 🙂 I have found you to be an entertaining writer to read regardless of the topics that you’ve addressed.
Thank you 🙂 (blushing!)
I like that your blogs are about lots of different things. TV, movies, short story’s/book excerpts, interviews with authors, family, and if course the writing process and how you create your characters. All these are things I like reading about!
Then we have a lot in common! Those are my favorite things, too 🙂
I’ll submit my ballot in favor of articles on either the craft or the business of writing. I realize no vote is necessary to get you to continue the TV commentary, which I’ve come to rely upon 🙂
I also love short stories, and serialized versions of short stories would be entertaining as well.
One other suggestion, purely technical so take it for what it’s worth – I use Feedly for RSS feeds, and the excerpt length for the posts provided through the site is, IMHO, too short. Could that length be expanded? 🙂
I’ll ask the web guru about the excerpt lengths for the blog posts — I have NO idea how that works. Maybe the redesign will fix that, or maybe I’ll need to do something manually on my end. How much do you see right now? A line? Paragraph?
I vote for all of the above. I enjoy the occassional blog about the writing process even though I’m not a writer. It’s kind of looking behind the curtain.
Yes, the look behind the curtain will expose me as being the procrastinator that I am … I told my agent that today, and he laughed. Yes, I write 3 books a year. But I write faster the closer my deadline gets …
For today’s post (the short story, which is excellent by the way) the excerpt ends with ” . . .novellas under 25,000 words and my books under . . . “