You Blog & You Learn

When I started this little blog like six months ago or so, all I wanted to do was share the journey I'm going on with my writing, as well as little bits of my personal life here and there. I had no idea if anyone would read it, and to be honest I still have no idea how many "loyal" readers I have out there. I put my posts up on Facebook and Twitter, and figure if people are bored maybe they'll take a minute to read it. I assumed my readership would mostly be friends and family who are aware of the process I'm going through and want to check in to see how it's going.

Thanks to the internets, the amount of information about the publishing world is as abundant as it is overwhelming at times. I follow several literary agents' blogs and Twitter feeds, and many of them will post or retweet relevant links to other agents' blogs and whatnot. I could literally spend an entire day reading agent blogs, linking to one right after the other. Ahhh, if only I had the time. Anyway, I have a point.

I found yet another agent blog yesterday (which was tweeted by the great literary agent Janet Reid of Query Shark), and basically this agent is doing a series about what NOT to put on your blog. In other words, how you should keep your blog professional and not use it to whine about how many rejections you've been getting, and for the love of god, don't post excerpts from your book!

Um. Whoops.

Again, I guess I wasn't considering this a "professional" blog, but in the long run, if I want to be taken seriously, I need to make it just that. It's not completely unlikely that perhaps an agent will stumble upon this blog when I'm in the submission process.

Of course, I plan on sticking with most of my original format- telling you guys how things are going, sharing the stuff that's happening, where I'm at with everything. And I never, ever intended to post anything about how many rejections I've been getting or mention any specific agent names who've rejected me (while I'm being positive- someone out there WILL love me & my work!- I'm sure there will be plenty of rejections). But I still DO intend to share my excitement of this whole process...when I get my first request for a partial or full from someone...when I get any good feedback about things I should change or think about...etc. My feeling is if you're not interested in it, well, no one is making you read it. But this blog is also for ME. Ten years from now, when I'm a successful author (ahem) it'll be fun to look back on where it all began.

I have, however, removed all the posts with my snippets of In My Mind's Eye. Sorry kids. You'll just have to wait for the real deal.