If you want to get ahead, get a hat – I mean, a blog
We’re all so used to reading and writing blogs now that it’s easy to forget that they are a relatively recent phenomenon. Jane Perrone, writing on The Guardian’s blog just 14 years ago, felt the need to explain what they were for the sake of the uninitiated:
A weblog is, literally, a “log” of the web – a diary-style site, in which the author (a “blogger”) links to other web pages he or she finds interesting using entries posted in reverse chronological order.
We Sing, We Dance, We Blog…
I’d almost forgotten that blogs used to be called weblogs. When I see that word now, my instinct is to read it as “we blog” rather than “web log”, as if it’s part of the declension of the verb “to blog”. (Iblog, youblog, heblogs, weblog …) Interesting, too, that Perrone defines the main purpose of a weblog as being to link to other web pages rather than to post original content, which I’ve always perceived as the bigger priority.
Back to the Bloginning (groan)
Stumbling across Perrone’s definition set me thinking about how my own blog came into being, eight years ago. I started it at a critical time in my life: I had just handed in my notice for my last full-time day job in order to focus on building an author career.The purpose of my blog was then three-fold:
to declare my intent to be an author, on the basis that publicly committing yourself to something makes it more likely to happen
to make myself write something new on a regular basis
to start building an audience for my books when I got round to writing them
Having fun with M C Beaton
Eight years and over 500 published posts later, I’ve revamped the look and the layout of my blog countless times. Many a time I’ve counselled those new to blogging that a writer’s blog is never done. No matter how much work I do on my blog, the day will never come when I can tick it off my to-do list as a fait accompli.
Whereas my blog started out as the front page and focal point of my website, it’s now a subset of my now substantial author website, which has separate pages on each of my books, news about my events, reviews, videos, podcasts and other jollities.
Reasons to be Posting
I’ve also changed what I post about.
At the outset, it was anything and everything – I’d pick a fun idea and treat it as a writing prompt, whether or not it had anything to do with my writing career. This list demonstrates the crazy diversity of my early posts:
More recently with most of my writing energies being directed into my growing series of novels (the fifth is due at my editor’s tomorrow), I’ve mostly kept my blog topped up by repurposing other content, such as the monthly columns I write for two local magazines, or guest posts published elsewhere. And before you ask, yes, I repost my Authors Electric posts there too.
Four novels and counting… the fifth Sophie Sayers Village Mystery will be out in September
I’ve been trying to keep the plate spinning and keep my blog fresh by posting weekly, ideally on a Wednesday. I chose that day for no other reason than the existence of a #writerswednesday or #ww hashtag on Twitter that made it easy to remember when to post. For the same reason, I try to make any appointments I have at 11am, so that I don’t forget when they are!
Elevenses – such a great time of day!
(With Oakwood Lit Fest director Dawn Brookes)
(Photo: Angela Fitch)
The Ever-Changing Blogosphere
While my blog was evolving, the blogosphere also changed. In short, it’s become saturated. Every man and his dog has a blog. (Quite a few cats have their own blogs too..
So many blogs to read, so little time to read them – which means it’s harder to get people to read yours, no matter how good your posts, how winning your images, and how optimised your SEO.
Going Full Circle
Eight years since that first post, my declaration of intent has been fulfilled:
I’m now an established author with a growing back-catalogue of novels and other books, and a busy diary of writing-related engagements.
Opening Oakwood Lit Fest (Photo: Angela Fitch)
So I’m about to redefine my blog’s purpose yet again. I’m going to take it back to basics and make it more of a writer’s journal, with short posts about the various events in my writing life – talks, festivals, outings that inspire me, as well as announcements about my books and as a record of pieces I publish elsewhere.
Although I’m just winding down to taking some time off during the school summer holidays, my diary is usually madly busy. If I write about every writing-related event in my life, I’ll be posting far more often than weekly.
Which I’m trying to view as a benefit: if I find I can’t keep up with recording what I’ve been doing, then I’m trying to do too much (a constant weakness of mine) – and I’ll take that as a sign that I should ease up for the sake of my sanity.
So in summary, my new-look blog will actually be an old-fashioned writer’s diary, only in digital form – a log of my writing life.
My new objectives for my Writing Life blog will be:
to provide those who enjoy reading my books with interesting insights and fun facts about the person who wrote them
to help other writers achieve their own career goals by sharing what I learn along the way
to keep a record of events and developments in my writing life for my own interest
After all, if I don’t find my blog interesting, why should anyone else? As Oscar Wilde would say, one always needs something sensational to read on the train…
Please always feel free to join the conversation via the comments box!
As a compulsive writer, I sometimes find it stressful that I never have enough time to write everything I want, either on paper (where my fiction writing first takes shape) or on my blogs.
This morning, for example, I’ve been staring at a list of topics and events I need to write up while they’re still fresh in my mind, including recent writers’ festivals that I’ve attended and some social occasions. I know that another day will go by before I manage to make a start on them thanks to some pressing deadlines for some paid freelance work. Continue reading “What To Do When There Aren’t Enough Hours in the Day”→
A post about my recent guest lecture at the University of Winchester on the night the earth moved
Playing to a packed house at the University of Winchester
As part of my involvement with the Alliance of Independent Authors, I take part in all kinds of bookish events, such as literary festivals and lectures. This week saw my first gig as a guest speaker at the University of Winchester, which runs prestigious MA courses in Creative and Critical Writing, attracting students to its lectures from as far afield as Oxfordshire and Kent.
Actually, it was two gigs: first of all, a 90-minute talk about how to self-publish to a professional standard, as part of the university’s Reading Series of public lectures, followed by a 75-minute seminar with MA students talking about blogging for authors. Both were organised by the Course Director Judith Heneghan, who it turned out shares an alma mater with me, the University of York.
Speaking on Self-Publishing
“All hail, Hugh Howey, prince among self-publishers!”
The large lecture theatre was packed with authors and aspiring self-publishers of all ages, and there were plenty of questions at the end, which is always gratifying.
The more intimate second session was also more interactive, during which I showcased some typical author blogs, including my own, before we discussed some of the students’ own blogs, each of which had its own charms and merits.
I really enjoyed finding out more about the students’ work, and before I left, I agreed with the course director, Judith Heneghan, to provide one-to-one website critique sessions at the Winchester Writers’ Festival on 20th June, when I’ll also be providing a quick-fire Q&A session about self-publishing for the general public.
The Litmus Test of Students’ Writing
I also interested to learn about the students’ annual printed anthology, Litmus, which showcases samples of all of their work. By chance, they’d just set up a new blog to promote it, as well as a Twitter account at Litmus2015. If you’d like to do your bit to encourage emerging authors, please pop over to visit their blog www.litmus2015.wordpress.com and “like” or “follow” it if you feel so inclined. It’s clearly a blog for the discerning, because, whaddya know, it features a piece about my visit!
Well, I always wanted to be a librarian when I was little
I’m rather hoping they’ll send me a copy of the 2015 Litmus anthology when it comes out, as I’d love to read it to review on my brand-new book blog, which I’ve just unveiled here:
I rolled home from Winchester, feeling rather tired after the 170-mle round trip. Pleasant though the journey was in daylight, it was wearying after dark, and I was glad to get to bed, duty done.
The After-Shock
“Steady, girl!”
But imagine my surprise that almost the first word I heard on the radio-alarm in the morning was “Winchester” – not usually featured on the national news headlines.
The context? Apparently, half an hour into my first lecture, there’d been an earthquake in the town. I confess I didn’t notice it while I was there – maybe that was the moment I was steadying myself on the desk here – but I’m wondering whether the earth moving is the reason that I only spotted one person nodding off in the audience all evening. Well, I’m happy with that!
(All pictures taken at Winchester courtesy of one of the course students – thank you)
To keep up to date with my other planned events and speaking engagements, visit the Events page on this website.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like to read my reports on other recent speaking engagements:
Well, did you miss me? Did you notice I’ve been offline for a bit? Probably not – if you’ve got any sense, you’ll have spent a lot of time offline over Christmas too.
But I have to say I’m greeting the first working week of the New Year with renewed energy and enthusiasm, after spending as much time as possible away from my computer during my daughter’s two-week break from school.
When I furtively dipped back into the internet now and again during the holiday fortnight, it was effectively under cover – I’d set up an out-of-office message to cover my two email accounts: the online equivalent of dark glasses.
In fact, if I hadn’t been part of Helen Hollick’s fabulous Christmas Party Blog Hop, I’d have spend even less time online. Reading the other participants’ fascinating posts was the main reason that I sneaked back to my computer at all.
Why Christmas Isn’t Over Yet…
Catch it before it’s too late!
What do you mean, you didn’t read the 25 fabulous articles on the blog hop, on different aspects of Christmas traditions and with plenty of festive fiction samples to enjoy?
Fear not, there’s still time to catch them with a clear conscience, because, as I’ve just discovered, Christmas isn’t actually over just yet. I’m not talking about waiting for Twelfth Night (today, 5th January, according to some people, or tomorrow, 6th, for others, including me). The vicar’s letter in the new Hawkesbury Parish News states that the festive season doesn’t officially conclude until Candlemas on 2nd February. Now there’s the excuse Laura was looking for to keep the Christmas tree up for a little longer.
In the meantime, I’m back in the room – and I’ve just been blogging about the benefits of going offline on the advice blog of Alliance of Independent Authors. You can read that post here, if you’re interested: Don’t Let the Internet (Tail) Wag the Author (Dog)
What’s the longest you can bear to stay offline – or indeed online?
Do you have a top tip to share on avoiding internet burnout?
Feel free to join the conversation via the comment box below!
Together with 25 other authors, today I’m taking part in a special Christmas Party Blog Hop, organised by the ever-generous historical novelist Helen Hollick.
Each of us is running a party-related post on our blogs today. You’ll find mine below here, followed by a list of links so that you can hop over and enjoy all the others’ goodie too. Some of them are even offering virtual party bags – a prize for a lucky winner who will be chosen after the hop is over.
First stop is my free short story, one of the 12 lighthearted tales in my new Christmas collection, Stocking Fillers, now available to order in paperback or ebook from all the usual retailers, online and on the high street. It makes gentle mockery of the supposedly perfect Christmas dinner, which somehow never materialises in my house…
Short Story: Good Christmas Housekeeping
Until this Christmas, I’d never believed that anybody really used the kind of fancy Christmas table setting that you see featured in every glossy magazine this side of September.
You know the sort I mean. They’re always pictured in rooms absolutely dripping with home-made swags of holly, gathered fresh from your vast and well-kept garden, of course. Enormous dinner tables for implausibly large family gatherings sport wildly impractical damask tablecloths, the sort of thing that would never withstand the onslaught of gravy, red wine and Ribena that accompany Christmas dinner in our household. There’s usually a breathtaking centrepiece, or even a whole series of little installations running down the table: bonsai’d holly trees; sculptures made from gilt-sprayed pine cones; exotic flower arrangements, each worth about as much as the turkey.
The dining chairs are festooned with gold bows or swathed with tartan. The vast array of cutlery promises at least five courses. Half a dozen crystal glasses suggest these will be accompanied by champagne, white wine, red wine, desert wine, sparkling water (probably Fijian), not forgetting the after-dinner brandy or liqueur.
As to the china, it’s either exquisitely simple, price rising in inverse proportion to the degree of decoration, or it’s a wittily mismatched medley of vintage Christmas designs, picked up for a song at a little market in Provence.
It goes without saying that in such a setting, the conversation among your most intimate friends and family would be no less than sparkling.
I’m never sure when the hostess is meant to find time to set up such an ornate display. After all, the same magazines usually implore us to start the day with a light but elegant spread of fresh home-made bread, croissants and smoked salmon, washed down with Bucks Fizz (not the sort that comes ready-mixed in a single bottle). They make us feel inferior if we’re not also rustling up the most complex combinations of vegetables to accompany our exotically stuffed turkey or goose. Now I’m lucky in that cooking comes easy to me, but I just can’t be doing with the rest of it. I’d rather spend more time relaxing with my family than handcrafting centrepieces for the dinner table.
In the odd spare moment, we hostesses are meant to style our hair to perfection, slick on this season’s show-stopping festive make-up, and slip into the elegant silk cocktail dress that our perfect husbands have surprised us with, alongside our Christmas stocking crammed with designer toiletries, none with a price tag of less than three figures.
Christmas looks rather different in our household. Even if I were to conjure up such a vision of domestic bliss, it would be lost on my husband Kevin and our ten-year-old son Ben, which is why I was pleased to accept my cousin Moira’s invitation to have Christmas dinner at their place. For once I’d be off the hook from feeling a failure for not matching the ideal trumpeted by so many women’s magazines.
We’d never been to Moira’s for Christmas dinner before, but as this year Christmas Eve coincided with her silver wedding anniversary, she and her husband Douglas had invited all the family to celebrate. What on earth possesses people to get married at Christmas, I wonder. Isn’t life complicated enough? It’s like choosing to have your birthday on New Year’s Eve. A normal person just wouldn’t do it.
Alarm bells started ringing as soon as we approached their front door, from which was suspended a picture-perfect wreath of real holly, heavy with clove-studded oranges and tartan-wrapped bundles of cinnamon sticks. Matching ribbons festooned the fairy-lit bay trees that stood sentry on either side of the front door.
“At least you don’t have to water plastic holly,” I said brightly, thinking of our own tatty wreath, which we’ve used for as many years as we’ve been married.
Moira shimmered to the door in a silvery silk sheath dress. Perfectly made-up and accessorised, she had not a hair out of place. As it was her silver wedding, I forgave her. Inside the hall, the banisters sparkled with elegant silver-dipped ivy. It looked as fresh as if it was growing there. Glittering above our heads were levitating silver stars, presumably suspended from hidden wires
Once Moira had taken our coats, she beckoned us into the lounge. On a snow-white tablecloth were dozens of expensive delicatessen canapés, displayed like high art on silver cake stands nestling among a forest of miniature potted Christmas trees and frolicking velveteen reindeer. I felt like we’d been asked to eat Narnia.
“Mum, why don’t we ever have stuff like this at home?” hissed Ben, seizing three cheese straws in each hand.
“Daddy and I haven’t been married 25 years yet,” I improvised, false smile plastered on my face like make-up. And there was me thinking I’d done well to buy Ben festive star-shaped Hula Hoops.
The dining room table was no less impressive. To the right of each place setting stood six frost-topped crystal glasses, which I knew from an article I’d just read was done by painting on egg white with a brush and rolling the glass in caster sugar. To frost so many glasses would require a labour force the size of Santa’s.
The centrepieces had moved up a notch from Narnia to focus on the openly religious. Silvery angels were doing some kind of synchronised flying beneath an ice sculpture shaped like a giant star. I could tell Ben was itching to break a bit off an icicle to eat, so I held his hand firmly in mine, hoping to look like an affectionate parent rather than a police officer carrying out a restraining order.
I was glad the metre-square silver gauze napkin provided concealed my less than glamorous denim skirt, though I knew I’d be wiping my hands on my skirt rather than spoil the napkin. But I admit I was looking forward to having my Christmas dinner cooked for me.
And that’s when things started to go wrong.
“I’m afraid the cream of chestnut soup is just a little scalded,” Douglas apologised as he circled the table, whisking away snow-white soup plates. The smoke billowing from the closed kitchen door suggested his explanation was an understatement. “So we’ll be moving straight on to the fish course.”
At that point a shriek came from the walk-in larder. “Bloody cat!”
Moira appeared in the doorway, fanning her slightly flushed face with a paper plate.
“I’m so sorry, everybody. Barnaby has been a naughty boy with the salmon. Let’s fast forward to the palate cleanser. Douglas, sorbet, please!”
Douglas obediently produced from the kitchen a silver salver filled with tiny tin foil tart cases. “Cranberry sorbet,” he explained when Ben picked one up to sniff it.
“What’s a palate cleanser, Mum?” Ben asked loudly. “Is it like paint stripper?”
“No, not that sort of palate, Ben,” I whispered. “It’s what you eat between courses to get rid of the taste of the last one.”
“But we haven’t tasted anything yet,” he replied at full volume.
Kevin sniggered.
“Please excuse me a moment while I go to carve the bird,” announced Douglas. “Or rather, birds. We’ve got a multi-bird roast. You know, a quail inside a pheasant inside a chicken inside a turkey inside a goose.”
“Does that count as cannibalism?” piped up Ben.
As I shushed him, Moira began to set down snow-white vegetable tureens. I wondered what magical mixtures of vegetables lay inside. She lifted the lids.
“Carrot and garlic puree with caramelised onion. Compote of sugar snap pea.”
Kevin, normally fond of vegetables, sniggered again. I tried not to gasp at the twin pools of orange and green slime. They looked like the stuff Ben plays with in the bath.
“Are you sure that’s not the paint?” Ben hissed. “For the palate cleanser?”
“Chestnut loaf!” said Moira brightly, placing a large red block in front of Ben.
“Is that a brick?” he enquired.
“Saffron potatoes.”
“They’re exactly the colour of my yellow Playdoh.”
Next Douglas bustled in bearing a vast silver platter. The concentric rings in each meaty slice made me think of the cross-section of a tree trunk. This impression was reinforced when I tried to cut into my serving with the only knife I’d yet had occasion to use.
When it came to the Christmas pudding, suffice to say that brandy wasn’t needed to set it alight. It had already clearly been in flames, accounting for the loud bang that came from the kitchen just before the microwave timer pinged. Shop-bought mince pies, hastily produced from packets in the absence of anything else that was truly edible, were the only things of any substance that we ate.
“Well, at least we’re tackling these with a clean palate,” said Kevin in a voice only slightly lower than Ben’s.
To be fair to Moira and Douglas, they did keep filling all six glasses, which is why, by the time we got home, Kevin claimed not to remember anything about the meal. I was glad I’d volunteered to drive and felt entirely virtuous raising a toast over the smoked salmon soufflé and tossed salad that I’d rustled up for tea when we got home.
“To the best Christmas dinner I’ve ever had!” I chinked my glass against Ben’s Ribena. “But maybe next year we’d better invite Moira and Douglas to ours.”
THE END
_______________________________
If you enjoyed this story, you might like to read the other 11 in the collection. Stocking Fillers is now available to order as a paperback or ebook from all good retailers, on the high street and online.
_______________________
Party Bag Time!
I’m pleased to offer a party bag to one reader chosen at random a week after the hop is over. It will include:
a signed paperback or ebook of any one of my books (choose from the book cover images on the home page of my website)
a packet of paper doilies fit for any party table setting
To enter the draw, just leave a comment at the foot of this post. The draw will be made on 1st January 2015. I figured that winning a prize on the first day of the new year would be a nice start to 2015 for somebody! Good luck!
_______________________
Now on with the Party!
Thanks for reading my party post – now hop on down the list to enjoy further festive entertainment! (I’ve tested all the links pre-launch, but if any don’t work for you, please let me know by leaving a comment.)
Finally, a huge thanks to Helen Hollick for organising this blog hop. If you need a good read to tide you over the dark nights of the Christmas holidays (or to read on the beach if you’re in the southern hemisphere!), I’d recommend any of hers.
With best wishes for a wonderful party season – and a happy and healthy new year.
