Thursday, April 21, 2016

It's About Time...

a shelf of books

I've been blogging infrequently as a publisher, but I never started a blog for my identity as an author in my own right.

I don't have an author website, or even a facebook page. How smart is that since just about every book and maven for book marketing says an author needs an online presence to held build that all important "author platform"? And the big advice is for an author to blog. What has it taken me so long?

It's not hard to explain. Some writers are prolific; words flow from their pens (or keyboards). I am not. I am in the camp of writers who sit before their screens and don't begin to write until droplets of blood form on their foreheads. I'm a good writer, but I find writing very hard work.

Another complication is more personal. Some of the medications I take daily are a little mind-clouding. I'm still relatively sharp, but I can tell the difference. Sometimes I blame the medications for sucking ideas out of my head just as I am about to write.

A reason I haven't blogged much up till now, even though I've had a CEO's blog for my publishing company, Thursday Night Press, for years is that I simply haven't known what to write about in a blog that people might want to read. Well, now I do.

I've started writing my first murder mystery. I've read plenty of mysteries before--I love Sherlock Holmes stories--but I've never written one. So here's the topic of my blog: how a newbie to the genre learns to write a tolerably decent murder mystery.

In this blog, I will document everything I learn that relevant to writing the story. If I make use of books, I will review them. I already have a head start on my learning, so I should be able to blog with some regularity. I'm aiming to blog at least weekly.

I hope you'll follow my adventure and have as much fun with it as I know I will.