Perhaps you want to be a big name author. Scratch that - a Big Name Author, an author of such prominence that maybe your books feature a distinct font that identifies you and you alone. Maybe you have your own fragrance. Maybe you want to have a backlist that can wrap around the earth sixteen times, or books that display your name larger than title itself. Maybe you want to be such a Major Player that people stop and take notice when you do something, like having the Associated Press notice when you announce that you’re starting a blog.
Seriously. There are sixty-eleventy botrillion blogs on the internet, but when Danielle Steel starts one, major press outlets take notice.
Wow. That right there is some authorial prominence at work. I mean, Stan in accounts payable probably started a blog ten minutes ago, and no one’s loaded that page but him.
Steel decided, according to the AP article (seriously, Hillel Italie has the greatest job in the history of the universe), to start blogging because her kids are grown up and she doesn’t have to worry so much about their privacy (good on you, Ms. Steel. Well played). Plus she wants to “communicate with my readers in a more informal way.” Considering that her first entry is all about age, and that she’s at a bad age but so is everyone else and yet everyone should enjoy the age they are right now, I’m not sure what the message was. I’m chronologically 33 and I’m enjoying my age just fine, but I’m still confused as to what the point of all that was. Hi, you’re not old! Thanks!
Ah, well. It doesn’t matter. She is probably not reading this here site, or any of the other romance blogs I adore, if this quote is any indication:
But she will play nice on her blog.
“I want it to be friendly and positive” she says. “I have seen some of the blogs being highly critical about people and highly nasty. I don’t like that in life; it’s just not necessary. Life is hard enough without being sour on top of it.”
Well, let’s break the champagne bottle on the SS Welcome to the Internet. A note Ms. Steel: mazel tov on the new blog! It’s definitely a tool in the arsenal of communicating directly with readers. But please note a key definition of terms: the “blog” is the entity itself, the web site that contains all the individual writing. It’s the sum, the whole, the entire collection. It’s the book, if you will. The individual pieces of writing are “entries” or, maybe “chapters” or even “pages.” So when you say, “And thank you for reading my first blog” you are mixing it up a bit and kinda sound like a noob. Nitpicky, I know, but when the AP notices when you’re blogging, you work the terminology right. Welcome to the party.
A website that reviews romance novels from a couple of smart bitches who will always give it to you straight. No bullshit. No gushing--unless the author really deserves it.
RE: why they all called at the same time.
If you’re at all into new-agey stuff, in numerology, you go through cycles based on your name and birthdate. It could be that you just went through a cycle…
Bullshit!
How can you mis-remember your child’s school play - that you never attended?
Unless he’s on drugs, which explains everything
I’ll have to go with a recipe for Chipotle Buffalo Chili that I learned to make from a cooking class I took a couple of years ago in San Francisco. Mmmmmm.
Yup, bullshit. I’d be willing to accept his excuse if he said that he found it on his harddrive and couldn’t remember whether he wrote it or not. I know that happened to me, though only with little pieces of…
I don’t cook much - that’s the husband’s job, and he’s damned good at it. But I do bake and am excellent at party food. My chocolate chip cookies are legendary. The recipe I use is a simple one, from…
