Janet Van Gorden

I am a creature of habit, and I HATE change.  But change is a necessary evil.  It leads to progress, and progress leads to success.  And success is what we all strive to achieve.

One morning, as I sat in my usual and now permanent writing spot at the end of my kitchen table, I was complaining to my husband that I had no idea what to do with my blog.

I toyed with the idea of nixing it all together, to eliminate the tug on my already overstretched time, but I didn’t want to make a decision without information.  After some research and a plethora of internet opinions, “the experts” all seem to be in agreement that authors NEED a blog to ensure successful audience growth.

Great!

I asked my husband for some of his advice in the middle of my whine fest, he follows several bloggers, and he told me the key to growing an audience is frequent posting.  Get my name out there, with my content, as often as possible.

Super great!

What do I write?  How am I going to draw new readers to my blog?

So, of course, I returned to the internet, this time hoping to find some answers or even better, inspiration.  Google so kindly supplied me with more information than I could ever want or use, minus the inspiration and helpfulness.  With the disappointing realization that no one was going to hand me a magic formula saying, “Hey, write this…” or “blog this way…,” without paying an arm and a leg, I had to solve the problem on my own.

I drew in a deep breath, pulled up my bootstraps, and decided to make the complicated, simple, and go old school.  All the way back to my elementary reading classes when we were taught to think, ‘who, what, why?’

Who is my target audience?

What do I want to say, or share?

Why am I writing it?

The answer to the first question is easy and obvious.  I’m either writing for other authors or readers.  No brainer, there.  Readers, it is.

I have my audience, now what do I want to share with you?  Do I go personal with my entertaining family stories, or do I try the “authorial” approach and stick strictly to writing process and techniques?

That’s where I get stuck.  I have no idea which approach is best.  Is personal better than professional, or vice versa?

What, dear reader, interests you?  What would make you want to return to my blog again, and again?  The point of this whole exercise is to churn out something you want to hear.

As always, my husband came to my rescue.

“What if you write about things that happen to you in a day that leads you to think about writing?  Something that pops into your head and snowballs into a story idea.  Your ‘writerly moments.’  It will make you stop and think about what inspires you and your thoughts.  Readers love to know where writer’s get their inspiration.”

Isn’t he so awesome?  Part professional and part personal.  The perfect resolution.  And his advice has a point.  Not just for my blog, but my writing in general.  I need to be more aware.

His answer reminded me of an interview I did with a local newspaper.  When the obvious, cliché question came up, “Where do you get your ideas from?”  I shrugged and smiled, which didn’t matter because it was a phone interview.  But anyway, I gave an answer something along the lines of, “Well, the ideas just sort of pop into my head.”

I still cringe when I think about the lameness of that response, although, lucky for me, the reporter made it sound so much more articulate in the article.  But, hey, I was honest.  I never gave my inspiration much thought.

Artists, writers, musicians, and creatives alike, refer to their “muse” when they talk about inspiration.  I have a “muse,” and when it speaks, I write it down.

Ironically, mere hours after I had the conversation with my husband about recording my “writerly moments,” I had such said moment while shopping for his birthday presents.

I was standing in Dick’s Sporting Goods, perusing fishing lures.  I hate fish, fishing, and anything to do with any animals covered in scales, but being the good wife that I am, I put that aside.  As I stood there, the only female surrounded by aisles full of serious outdoorsmen, I tried to pretend I knew what I was looking at and what I should be buying. It led me to think about what would happen if someone approached me and asked if I needed help.  I would have most definitely said no.  I might even have made up something to make myself seem like I had it all under control.

This thought strayed into a story idea.

A woman is shopping for fishing lures for her father, or maybe a brother, and has no idea what she is looking for, but would rather run a marathon in heels before embarrassing herself by asking for help.  Yet, the sight of the guy working the store’s department makes her think he might be worth sacrificing her pride.

I imagined her to be a woman who bumbles her way through a lot of situations with as much grace as she can muster, and makes falling in love with the sporting goods guy a lot of fun.

Now, whether that turns into a story someday, I can’t say, but it’s a nugget of possibility.  I am apparently always gathering ideas, and I’ve never actually been conscious of it until now.

So, let’s recap my blog list:

• Who? Readers
• What? “Writerly moments.”
• Why? Entertainment.  We all need that now and again when this world pummels us with chaos and bad news.  Escapism is a requirement to keep our sanity in check.

I hope my blog posts provide a source of entertainment during your busy day.

Check back often, both here and on Facebook or Twitter for updates.

Talk to you soon.  Keep reading!