At Fresno Airport with my son Yousef
When Connie and I started this blog, we were aware that having an online presence was de rigeur for a writers. We wrote about our individual interests as we still do, though not as frequently as when we started. (Perhaps that should change; I don’t know!) For two writers who are close friends and depend on each other as much as we do, our interests couldn’t be more divergent–as you can see–since we appeal to basketball fans, Elvis fans, women who are thinking of marrying Saudis, and of course people involved in the literary world.
The “best” blogs are far more focused. They do the kinds of things that were recently discussed in an article put out by Publishing Perspectives on the relationship between tweeters, bloggers and publishers: the best blogs deal with topics that are very specific, which will instantly become trendy and develop a stream of focused interest from the public ( like being a woman who is past her “hot” years).
The question for anyone, especially other bloggers, is do you want to do what’s “best”? I would rather follow Tony Bennett’s advice to his daughter and do what I like. Trying to figure out what will be trendy two minutes from now is guaranteed to give me angst and I already have Gerd and other less polite-to- mention ailments. My own interests diverge and if that means I will never write a smash hit book aimed at people who have been following my tweets about how to get even with the third grade teacher who tortured my younger son and left me forever bitter at her conniving duplicity, then so be it.
This blog keeps up the minimum requirement for two writers: we have an online presence, sell our books at a profoundly relaxed pace (ha ha ha) and give anyone diligent enough to find us a way to contact us.
Amen, Sister!