Why it might be good for you, too.
Welcome! This is my revamped website. My second attempt at a blog. I am currently reading Julie Otsuka’s book The Buddha in the Attic and did some digging into her as an author and read an interview where she describes herself as a failed painter that turned to writing. That seems harsh, but you could say the same thing applies to me. My first blog and website was to sell my paintings. You can check out my paintings here on pinterest.
https://www.pinterest.com/susanshiney/susan-shineys-30-paintings-in-30-days/.
I learned a lot but couldn’t maintain it. Writing is a more sustainable pathway for me, I will still include my artwork here and there, because why not?
10 Reasons Why I Have an Author Blog:
1. Get an audience and following. I have been working on my debut novel for years and as I near completion, I want to get all my ducks in a row for querying my work to literary agents and publishers. I also want to have readers to sell to!
2. Build up my email list for my newsletter. I see a lot of websites play this down, but I think it is important to clarify to interested parties how important this is. The social media accounts we have could disappear at any moment and I wouldn’t have any connection to my followers. The email list is also an important metric to have when querying literary agents and publishers. The traffic from emails is much stronger than social media. So, please sign-up if you are so inclined. 🙂 My newsletter will be published monthly with all kinds of goodies.
3. Go deeper into my craft. I have already started to do research for future blog posts and I can see the benefits. Each post requires a lot of research on my part and synthesizing of the available information. I will also try to take the advice I find about the craft of writing, then apply it to my work and report on the strategies that helped me improve and how.
4. Motivation to write short fiction regularly. Every month I want to share an original piece of flash fiction or a short story on my blog. This will be a way for readers to get an idea of my voice and style as we all wait patiently for my novel to be published. I am focusing now on line-editing and I miss the creation aspect of writing, I need it to balance me out. I want to show you the process I went through for revising these stories as well.
5. Push me to participate and report on more writerly events. I have only been to one writer’s conference in the last couple of years and that needs to change. Having the need to blog on them will make me want to sign-up for more conferences, classes, read aloud events, contests and general writing gatherings. Step up my writing life.
6. Make my writing journey real. I don’t need this really, but a blog helps. It not only makes the community at large see me as an expert, but reinforces it for myself. I want it to happen and now I need to get my platform together to make it a reality.
7. Connect more with the surrealist, magical realist, and urban fantasy reading and writing community. I want to hone in on the genres I am interested in and dig deep with book and movie recommendations in these genres.
8. Find guest bloggers. I would love it if interested writers would like to publish some of their work or blogs here. It is important for me to have a website space for other writers or interested readers to share their ideas as well. Please email me if you are interested.
9. Keep on a schedule. I will be posting one article each week, so this will be a great way to keep me accountable.
10. Give back. As you can see from my about page, I have been a part of a lot of writing groups and online communities for the past nine years. I have learned so much and I am ready to share it in hopefully, easy to digest ways. I envision this being a space for writers and readers to have something meaningful to take away.
