The Friday Five ...

Five Reasons I'm Not a Great Blogger

In the spirit of the Friday Five rules, I’m going to keep it to five reasons, but believe me, there are many more.

1)      The only things I ever manage to do on anything like a daily basis are eating and sleeping and drinking tea. Seriously. I can’t even add “showering” in there.

2)      I realized a long time ago, reading over old journals and diaries from high school, that I journal most when I’m unhappy or trying to figure something out. And because I came to blogging through LiveJournal, blogging sometimes still feels, to me, like an online journal.

Except I don’t want to bore anyone with the details of a crappy day spent cleaning up cat pee and unearthing the floor in my kid’s bedroom and rocking back and forth, convinced that I will never again write a word that anyone in his or her right mind would want to read. Because I can’t imagine anyone wants to read that but me, and I honestly don’t want to read it much either.

3)      Fiction is my true writing love. Fiction is how I solve problems, and work out the kinks in my brain’s wiring, and understand the way I feel about the world. And it’s somehow easier to do it with fictional people than it is for Amy, the writer/mom/wife/friend/daughter, to do it *as* Amy, writing about her own thoughts, at least coherently or stylishly. So blogging sometimes leaves me a little befuddled, unless I’m linking to someone else’s thoughts and saying, “Yes! This!”

4)      It’s really easy to dance like no one is watching when … no one is watching. When I’m aware of an audience, especially one where I can interact with readers, such as the blog, it’s both terrifying and exciting. A lot of the time being terrified wins out, though.

5)      I’m that Worst Combination Ever ™, a lazy procrastinator. By the time I’ve wandered around the internet looking at shiny things, and made another pot of tea, and watched half an hour of Supernatural (TNT! weekday mornings at ten and eleven!), and wandered around the internet some more, and labored over my next Words with Friends move, it’s generally time to do paying work, or try to. (Or, on bad days, to pick up my kid from the bus stop, at which point productivity for the day takes another serious nosedive.)

So that’s me. Blogging is something I think about all the time, but doing it? I’m not quite there yet with any consistency. I’m hoping the Friday Five will help fix that, as well as some regular features, like interviews with other book people on Wednesdays.

I do have some things to say about writing and publishing, too! So I hope you’ll come back to read them, and if any of you have suggestions for posts you’d like to see here, please shout! (Or comment. That might be more effective.) 

And in the meantime, remember to tweet reasons to read Cold Kiss! The e-edition is on sale for $1.99 through the end of the month, and one person will win a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card for a creative reason to read the book. (Be creative! And tell your friends, huh? Also remember to @reply to me in the tweet so I'm sure to see it.)