WRITE-BYTES BLOG

WRITE-BYTES BLOG

…a resource for writers 

May 5, 2023

By Linda S. Gunther

The topic this week - 

WRITING A BLOG: LEARNINGS and INSIGHTS

 

To read this blog, go to my author website: 

www.lindasgunther.com

Click on Write-Bytes at top of screen and enjoy this week’s blog byte.

 

Each week is a new blog post and all previous blog posts appear for your convenience!​   

      

P.S. If you read the WRITE-BYTES blog, let me know if it’s of value to you. Please contact me on website or friend me on Facebook. You can also send me an email at linda.gunther@sbcglobal.net

 

For your convenience, below is this week’s blog post.

 

May 5, 2023 - #34 – Writing a Weekly Blog: Learnings and Insights

When I first conceptually visualized the WRITE-BYTES blog, I was wary of the blogging landscape. Did I really have anything to say, especially week after week? A few writing colleagues, my web designer Cowander and my book cover artist Julie suggested I just go for it, write a weekly blog for developing writers and post it on my author website. After all, Julie said, “Your head is full of it.” I hoped that she meant that in a good way.

So, I took a long walk by the beach where I live, my iPhone in hand, and asked myself some questions:

What would be my goal in writing any kind of blog?

Who would I target for my audience?

What would I title the blog?

What kind of content would target readers like to see?

I tapped the answer to question 1 into a blank Notes page.

BLOG’s GOAL: To share my learnings over the last ten years with other writers, inspire writers to continue writing, jumpstart new writers to “take the plunge,” and for me to KEEP ON LEARNING about writing through writing a blog. My one basic principle would be NO FLUFF. The blog must consist of concrete tips and valuable information for writers.

Question 2 was already answered with my response to question 1. I knew that my blog would be targeted for other writers like me who are faced with the same plethora of obstacles related to our craft, to getting our manuscripts published and to the outreach required to reader community.

There were a few other questions for me to consider:

Did I truly feel that doing a weekly blog would be satisfying, something I wanted to spend my precious time doing?

Would the blog have a concrete return on investment (ROI) for me?

Could I sustain writing a blog regularly (weekly) and over a continuing period of time (long-term)?

The voice inside my head answered: YES, YES and YES!

The blog title, WRITE-BYTES, immediately registered. I stopped walking and sat on the stone wall at the beach entrance and gazed out at the rolling ocean. I tapped a list of four or five blog title possibilities into my phone, then deleted each one except for WRITE-BYTES. That night I purchased the domain name which made me feel even more excited about the blog.

Now the hardest question:

What kind of content would my target readers want?

I started to make a list of potential topics and then over the next few days, I continued to add topics. I came up with a variety of them, things that challenged me as a writer such as:

Crafting a Scene

‘Show’ vs. ‘Tell’

Developing Believable Characters

Edit Rumination: The Danger Zone

Emotional Connection Between Characters

Point of View (POV) – A Writer’s Choice

Developing Tension and Conflict

The prospects just kept on coming. Within a week, I had over twenty topics identified, the content for each already bubbling in my brain. With ten years of serious writing under my belt, six published novels, and more than forty published short stories, I was ready to share my learning. And, I was beyond eager to research each selected topic, focus on what respected contemporary and classical writers have said about the art of writing a story, the challenges, the disappointments and rewards.

Now, after writing more than thirty blog posts, I ask myself this – With all the time and effort it takes for me to produce the content for WRITE-BYTES, what has been the single greatest reward?

Here’s what comes to mind:

The research on each topic, hearing and reading what top authors have to say has greatly expanded my knowledge base about the art of crafting a good story.

The positive reception of some literary journal lead editors regarding my blog has inspired me to continue to share my insights on writing.

The list of potential blog topics never seems to end. I attend webinars led by experts, listen to experiences from writing colleagues, participate in writing critique groups, belong to a couple of book clubs, seek out live action writers’ panels, maintain memberships in Writers’ Associations (Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Golden State Romance Writers, Central Coast Writers), and go to book signings. All these learning activities serve to stimulate more and more ideas for niche subjects that writers want to hear about in a weekly blog.

Although sustaining this blog has been ‘hard work’ and incredibly time-consuming, there is a chance that I might put together a guide book for beginning writers, and of course use my title,

WRITE-BYTES…What I’ve Learned About the Craft of Writing

My hope here is that by describing the process I’ve been through in creating and sustaining a weekly BLOG, it might help you to assess whether writing a blog might be an enticing possibility for you.

Highlights in bold above capture the core of this blog post!

Stay tuned for next week. Look for this BLOG every FRIDAY which will l be posted at 9 a.m.

Next week’s WRITE-BYTES post will be titled WRITERS SHIFTING GENRES.

 Linda S. Gunther has written five novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, and Dream Beach.

 She grew up in New York City, received a Master’s Degree in Psychology,
 an MBA and studied theatre at Oxford University with the British 
American Drama Academy. Linda’s passion for travel and continuous 
learning fuels her fire to create vivid fictional characters and 
unforgettable story lines.