Changing Gears

One of the things I have learned (as I go) is that it is really hard to keep a blog. For me writing a blog is in direct competition with keeping a journal. I write my journal by hand, with a Pelikan fountain pen and special Pelikan Fount India Ink. I write only for myself--I rarely share my journals--and I try not to censor my thoughts or think of an audience other than myself. My journals are a conversation I am having with myself and in them I explore many issues and problems, projects and ideas. I organize my days, my life, my thoughts. I store my best ideas.

By the time I get to writing my blog, I am tapped out. I am overly aware that this is a public space, whether I have a real audience or not, and I lose my true voice and start to bore even myself. So I am changing gears, taking this blog in a different direction for now.

I read a great article in the SCBWI National Bulletin about keeping a reading log. It was suggested that you keep track of the title, author/illustrator, publisher, date, and editor and/or agent if possible (often the editor or agent is mentioned in the acknowledgments--more likely in a novel than in a shorter book). Then write about the book--what captured your interest, or, if you lost interest, why was that. The point, of course, is to read with the eye of a writer. So I have decided to keep my Reader's Log here, on my blog. This is just one more way I am learning as I go.