What is this?
This is attempt #507 to keep a regular blog. They tell me these things are vital to an author, but I remain unconvinced. These days, by and large, people get exhausted by a lengthy text. Those who read relatively long-form online writing tend to congregate on platforms like Substack, not on random blogs.
Blogs like this one used to be a sort of general-interest thing that let you gain a window into an author’s life and work. You’d get professional advice in one entry, then something intensely personal, then a review of something that caught the author’s interest. And so forth. Focus wasn’t exactly a word associated with them.
Given readers’ impatience, the tolerance for blogs like mine is low. And yet, maybe it’s because I’m stubborn, old, or a combination of both, I can’t seem to muster the discipline to stick to a message. Though if I have any message at all, it’s probably this: stop using Goodreads and (ugh) BookTok as your arbiters of what’s worth reading. Not because ignoring them will help me sell more books, which it won’t, but because the tastemakers there tend to be judgmental and hostile to authors personally, with less attention paid to the work they’re supposed to be engaged with.
If that kind of sentiment enrages you, this is a blog to avoid. If you’re nodding your head, maybe stick around. I might say something else that interests you. We’ll see.