Background – Writers’ Blog Community
Do you mean to say there’s an actual writers blog community?
Well, there kind of is. People like me blog all the time. And there are other writers who blog less often but I should be including them. Even if they don’t truly keep to a blogging schedule or anything like that.
However, the real issue is, there isn’t a whole helluva lot of connection.
Islands in the Stream…♪♫
With all the apologies to Dolly Parton and the late Kenny Rogers, the truth is that any sort of a blog community for writers is horribly fractured. Hell, the term community is a bit of a misnomer in this area.
Now, it is possible to find something resembling such a community. In fact, there are a few decent communities for writers, and NaNoWriMo is one of them.
There are also offline groups, such as with MeetUp, but that doesn’t really solve the blogging issue, now, does it?
So, one of the things that has surprised me the most while doing research about this is that so few writers actually blog about writing. And I am not even so sure that they blog about anything. Which is a pity, and feels kind of weird.
There are also instructional blogs about writing. With the exception of Chuck Wendig, the links on that list are either educational or semi-promotional. And while Mr. Wendig is somewhat promotional, at least he does not make it the focus of his blogging. No one should. Because let’s face it, no one wants to read one long infomercial about your books.
Yes, even your books.
The Writer’s Journey, in Blog Form
Apart from, well, Adventures in Career Changing (that’s here, of course), I cannot seem to find something like that. You know, where the blogger covers a lot more of the journey from wannabe to frustrated writer to querying to acceptance to publication. Or maybe not to querying, but instead to going the indie route and self-publishing.
But that specific journey or at least meandering line doesn’t get coverage in the blogosphere. Or if it does, then hell if I know where it is.
It is somewhat easy to find help and I even offer some as I can. But there don’t seem to be a lot of blogs out there on the sheer process of querying. And the process of creating, for that matter.
How many bloggers look at their own stories with a critical eye? How many share their disappointments? And how many writing blogs cover connections among stories?
But you can always find blogs about outlining, or finding an agent, or setting up indie publishing.
Where Are You?
Excuse me. Where the hell are you???
Is there anybody else out there who is doing what I am doing? If you’re out there, you are making it rather difficult for someone like me to find you! Which means you just might want to rethink your SEO strategy.
Seriously.
And I swear, I want to find these folks. It’s not that I don’t want to learn even more about the writing business and self-publishing. Of course I do! But I also think that niche is covered extremely well already. My niche is different.
I would also put Dayton Ward into the category of writer journey blogger. But only kinda, sorta, as he also writes a lot about fandom. Not to say that I never meander.
Still, I just plain cannot believe that it’s just him and me. Seriously folks? That’s crazy if it’s just … us.
I have a lot of trouble believing the entire world of writer journey bloggers can fit in the back seat of my (rather small) car.
Starting a Community
Maybe it’s up to me (or maybe Dayton and me, I dunno) to start one. And maybe it’s not meant to be. But I do not give up that easily. And, I think it could be helpful. If absolutely nothing else, then it can be Commiseration City. Population: all of us.
I cannot possibly be the only person wondering why such a thing does not, seemingly, exist.
Er, can I?
Blog Community Takeaways
I first set off looking for a community of bloggers. And I found a lot of instructions and not much else. For my fellow writers in the trenches, I hope we can start to find each other. We probably already know one another one places like Facebook or Bluesky. But what about the blogosphere? Why aren’t there more folks here?
Writing can be an extremely isolating thing to do. A voice calls out in the darkness. Is there anyone to hear it?
Maybe… you?
Maybe we could all just create a writers blog community… together. #amblogging #amwriting