A to Z Recovery and Reflections

Hello all! Thanks for stopping by my blog once more. Last week saw the end of the A to Z Challenge here on DBCII, and a great many other blogs, and it was a genuinely fun time. Just looking at my archives, that was by far the most posts in a month that this blog has seen. It adds a fantastic collection of reflections on writing to the blog, really beefing up the purpose of the blog. And, with completing the challenge on two blogs, it really got me writing!

I did a reflection and looking-forward post on Comparative Geeks yesterday, and it was good to do so. For Comparative Geeks, it was a zero-sum change in the amount of content we did in the month: we regularly post Monday to Saturday, once a day, so the challenge’s rules matched perfectly. We went with a theme, so it got us blogging about characters for a whole month, which I think is good. Our character studies are regularly some of our most popular posts, so I think all of these are going to remain popular over time. At least, I hope so; I hope that the challenge-themed titles and such don’t detract from the posts. The one that got away from me was the one on Hermione and Harry – and the recent J.K. Rowling comments surrounding them. Which is a fun and relevant post here, too: does the author really get to challenge the meaning or content of their stories once written? Feel free to check it out and join in the conversation!

Anyway, I’ve been thinking and decompressing, and a four-day vacation helped. But it has me thinking about the state of the blog; the purpose of the blog, and my blogging; the future of my writing. Which is all supposed to happen, I think, doing something like this challenge. So below are some of my thoughts after working through the A to Z Challenge.

Honesty and Blogging

Part of the challenge was in reading other people’s blogs, something that was hard for me. Hard, in part, because I started watching all of the blogs that commented on my posts during the challenge. I have followed some, and have them all still saved as bookmarks to consider and follow at some point. Which really, I should do soon, or it will have been some wasted effort. Anyway, if I’m going to use a heading like “honesty and blogging,” consider that an honest confession from me. Reading blogs is a lot of work!

The most impactful post I read during the challenge, I think, is the post on Honesty on The Writing Catalog. I’m not sure why, entirely. I think it made me think about things not even really in the post, things only adjacent, or maybe even only happening in my mind. So let me try to unpack that all a little.

One of the points, and really the most basic, was about being truthful and representing things accurately. And that got me thinking about the fact that what I really tend to post are opinions and speculation. One of my favorite examples – in part because of the bold and probably completely inaccurate title – was “Doctor Strange – A Movie We’re (Sadly) Not Going To See.” That was a pretty bold title for the fact that I was pretty much 100% speculating. And it got me a comment that read as such:

“…Doctor Strange has already been announced as next after ant man so yeah you wasted your time on this article.”

-TheMan

I replied with a long and detailed response that I still remember pretty clearly, because I was kind of upset at this comment. It’s kind of trolly, I guess, in its anonymity and brevity, but still, it had an important point in it. I had failed to make my post sound like I was just speculating: I made it sound like I was confirming something. In my defense, Doctor Strange is still not a confirmed movie – but Stephen Strange was name-dropped in The Winter Soldier, so it’s just about as good as confirmed. But I think my concerns and speculations are still valid.

Now, there are ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ways I could have written that post. For instance, there’s the news style, like I linked to in my response. But I didn’t even really look for those sorts of posts. Then there’s the sort of post that actually includes that research for the readers: sets up the problem, presents the news and elements of it, and then maybe gets into the speculation. There’s the sort of post where I could write up how I would solve their problem (that being introducing Magic into their realistic though improbable science sort of franchise).

But no. Instead I wrote the sort of post I usually do: the sort of post where I am assuming a good deal, both about the subject, and my reader’s knowledge of the subject. In many ways, my posts are not set up to explain or instruct – they are intended to geek out with others. Others who share my interests and knowledge.

Which gets me to another great post from The Writing Catalog – on Audience. Something that really has not been something I have been thinking about with my blogging. Here on DBCII, the site functions almost more as my e-portfolio than it does as a blog for intended readers. I don’t post regularly, it’s often personal, or about Comparative Geeks. The A to Z Challenge really broke me away from this – so what do I do next?

With Comparative Geeks, we seem to have an audience in mind of ourselves, if anyone. Not necessarily a bad thing, as many of our geekdoms and fandoms are pretty mainstream. And we try to do more introductory posts, spoiler free or reviews, for more obscure items. And I think our sense of audience has grown as we’ve blogged. But still, I’m not blogging there in a way that I feel puts audience first, nor that is wholly honest, I suppose.

Audience and Purpose

So it has me thinking again, what is my purpose for these blogs? And maybe thinking for a first conscious time: what is my audience for these blogs?

I kept going with DBCII after it was done being used for classes as a blog about what I learned about writing and blogging. It’s a more personal sort of reflective blog, and hopefully anyone who stops by learns a thing, or has a thought to contribute. I hope this was the case during A to Z.

Comparative Geeks had a few purposes. One was to get geeky ideas out of my head and out to the ‘Verse. I used to say things like “I’ve been thinking a lot about that.” Now I say “I wrote a blog post about that” or “I’m going to write a blog post about that.” I have a huge accumulation of blog post ideas, enough that with no new ideas I could probably blog another year or two at our current schedule. So I’m not too worried about content generation there.

In thinking about it, most of the content takes the form of Reviews, Recommendations, and Speculation. Something we’ve experienced, or something we geek out about and want you to as well, or something we’re thinking about. Then there are a number of Meta posts, I suppose, about the world. Science Fiction Today, for instance. Or my posts about the definition and purpose of Science Fiction, most of which I have re-blogged on this blog. A solid critique post, as I think about it, would include a basic introduction to it with more depth than what we tend to include; I see posts on a number of blogs doing this, and doing things like weekly episode reviews (with recaps) or other sorts of reviews and critiques of this nature.

I think we’re happy with what we’re doing on Comparative Geeks, though. We’re not blogging there to be professionals – no matter how much I think about what we could do to get there. We just don’t have the time – to work, and to consume the media, and then to write about it in a really formal style! And then to do anything else, as well, with all of the boards and committees and volunteering and everything else that we do.

And where then would be time for me to find to write fiction? Because that is my other purpose behind writing the blog. To get into the habits of writing. To that end, I think I am doing pretty well. However, it’s not like I have all this extra time I could also be blogging, and am not. Do I stop blogging, to write? Do I turn wholly to blogging, grow the social media, and be more purposeful? I have a few thoughts.

So where do we go from here?

For DBCII, I think this needs to remain my personal space, where I am writing about my writing, maybe highlighting my writing, and connecting with writers. I would like to get better with the whole idea of the Sunday Re-Blog – maybe do more with it to connect with other writers, either by just re-blogging their posts, or maybe even by compiling good posts from the week. Though that could take a while.

Something I read recently (the start of a series on Twitter) said that as a writer you want to grow an audience. And while it’s great to have an audience of fellow writers, at some point – with a finished, written product – it’s readers you’ll need. Really, I’m not doing @mollygreene justice:

Do not fall into the trap of following authors exclusively. You want readers. Author friends are wonderful and they will educate and support you, but readers will become fans and buy your books. Find and follow readers. Readers, readers, readers.

-Molly Greene, How to Twitter: Tips for Newbies

I think I have the potential to pull off both things. Have this blog, where I am showcasing some writing, and asking questions of writers, and communicating with writers. It’s good. It’s been good. I’m just thinking of how much I’ve learned from reading all your work, and the A to Z Challenge: it’s great.

Comparative Geeks, though, with its more-frequent postings and content, has the potential to be a much bigger and better place to build an audience of readers. Readers want content to read (back to assumption there, but really, it makes sense to me as a self-reflective definition), and that’s where we are making that content.

So it’s DBCII where I need to grow my content creation: need to really get into writing fiction (probably through Tumblr still, but I should mention it all here too). And it’s Comparative Geeks where I need to work on growing the audience, work on the social media of it and connecting in with people. That’s the Twitter that could really use the eventual thousands of followers. Right? Then, if I end up with a written product, I point them in the right direction.

Too Long!

There’s so much more I want to talk about! I have an award nomination to give out (was nominated for the WordPress Family Award by The Writing Catalog), and that seems like a great way to highlight some of the writers I’ve found through the challenge and otherwise here with the blog. And we’ve been invited to contribute to another blog – and I’m thinking of doing more of that on other blogs, as well. Lots happening, but for now, that’s some of what I have been thinking about these current blog spaces, and what we’re doing with them, and their future. Fun times!