Absent Landlords and other priorities

Okay, so I haven’t blogged for a while. (Well, actually I have if you include the regular “this month’s publication” slot I do for the Macmillan New Writers Blog – but some would say that’s cheating). Indeed I haven’t done much on the internet at all over the last couple of weeks, including reading other writers’ blogs, leaving comments and generally keeping up-to-date on my regular haunts. The Blogspot of Blood has been neglected, and like an absent landlord I’ve rarely looked in on it.

For shame…

Last week I completed the proofs for The Hoard of Mhorrer to end two hectic weeks where everything was pretty much put on hold. It gave me a chance to tighten the prose, tweak continuity and iron out those unwelcome creases in the plot. The Hoard of Mhorrer now sparkles, like someone’s given it a mighty fine polish, and I’m very, very happy with it indeed (all that hard work has been worth it). But it did involve a period of intense work which wiped out my Bank Holiday weekend not to mention several afternoons of sunshine (for a Brit, not making the most of a sunny day is close to blasphemy), and of course The Black Hours has suffered as well. I’m now 15,000 words behind schedule, but I’m catching up – a few hundred words here, and a thousand there; I’m not worried by the hard work ahead of me because I’m enjoying it.

It does mean, however, than in terms of priorities, this blog is falling further down the pack, behind Sarah, writing The Black Hours and making time for friends and family (and a semblance of a social life). And it’s likely to be that way for a few months to come – certainly until my day-job becomes part-time and I can eek a semi-professional living from the writing (which might not be that far away). But I’m not the only one thinking of priorities (it must be the warmer weather…).

This week another stalwart of the blogging sphere hung up their blog account. Shameless, aka Seamus Kearney has announced he is ending his blog odyssey to concentrate on more pressing matters, and that’s good for him (though he will be sorely missed). He joins the ranks of the classic bloggers that have called it a day, which includes the likes of Grumpy Old Bookman and Miss Snark.

Blogs are like relationships, I’ve come to believe, and when you’ve been that involved with a blog over the course of years rather than months, watching it flicker out and die gradually due to other pressing commitments can be more painful than suddenly announcing its end. Personally, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I won’t be a regular blogger any more, and that I don’t religiously check my Site-meter to see how many hits I get a day. But the lack of visits doesn’t bother me. New visitors don’t necessarily find blogs because they’re popular, but stumble upon them by accident, Googling some obscure reference or finding them via a link from another’s blog or website. In my case, they might visit because they’ve read, or read about, The Secret War and curiosity has got the better of them.

Blogging isn’t a bad publicity tool, but neither is it the primary one and not the sort of tool a writer can rely on to sell books. It's bloody time consuming if you consider the work involved in creating a single blog entry that's engaging and then edited to a reasonable standard. And as I often stated before, you don't get paid to write blog entries.
When it comes down to priorities, blogging is a bit of fun, a place to blow off steam about something, or to bash out some news that someone might find interesting. And it’s that fun, communal thing that keeps me going, that makes it just a little addictive.
So no, I’m not calling it a day. A week. Or a month. One day this blog might fall silent permanently, but not yet. Not yet.

Besides, there’s still a second book on the way and a paperback and hopefully other newsworthy stuff that deserves a para or two. This blog is but an extension of the MFWCurran website, which in turn is an extension of my writing. And like all priorities, something has to come first. After all, which would people rather read? An entertaining but disposable blog or a half decent book every two years or so?

Next time: a blog entry that isn't about blogging. Probably about writing, and almost certainly about hitting the brick wall that is "The Mid-draft Blues..."