The blogger is IN

I don't want to start off the new year apologizing and explaining; suffice it to say that I needed a vacation from this blog and I took one.

I recently learned that after four years of blogging, Edward Champion called it quits on Return of the Reluctant, a litblog I have often enjoyed and occasionally linked to. Apparently, blogging lost its charm for Ed and he's now spending that time on other things. (I'm wondering if he'll work on perfecting his omelette-making technique, on which I recently advised him.)

Reluctant and I have had ourselves a good time over the years. But I’m a different person now. And I finally confessed to a good friend on the phone that I really had nothing more to say about books or the literary world in the Reluctant format. And I laughed for ten minutes over how absurdly simple the choice was. When something stops being fun, it’s pretty easy to become decisive.

Absolutely. Right there with you, Ed. But you won't hear any teeth-gnashing from my direction over Reluctant's demise; not as long as the blogisphere continues to grow and change and thrive.

While Ed will be missed, good bloggers arrive and depart every day--and that's part of what keeps my list of Daily Read blogs so fresh and interesting. I'm continually editing that list as I discover exciting new blogs, grow bored with old faves and delete them, and "lose" others when people like Ed Champion hang up their blogging hats. Last week I added the eclectic and enormously entertaining blog of actor and author Stephen Fry to my RSS feed reader.

As for my own blog, it passed a milestone last week. It was three years ago on December 26th that I set up a Blogger account and created No rules. Just write. Posting has been sketchy lately, not because I'm tired of blogging like Ed was--although I expect that will happen one day--but because other things demanded my attention. It might take me a little while to get back into the groove, but who knows? Tomorrow I might post something wonderfully profound or entertaining.

Or maybe it will be the next day. In any case, this seemed like a good opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading NRJR. Your comments here on the blog and your e-mails are a big part of the reason why I'm still having a good time doing this.

Confessions of a longtime blogger

I've had the Grumpy Old Bookman on my RSS reading list since even before he said all of those nice things about me, so I'm sorry to see that the old dear has gone on sabbatical.

At least, that's what he's calling it. But I've noticed that when established bloggers take more than a month off, they tend to recover from blogging fever--and they never come back.

Why do people blog? Common wisdom has it that it's all about ego: the blogger believes he has something to say to the world, and a blog of one's own makes a very handy soapbox. Perhaps that's true in the case of the folks who blog for a few months and then wander off, but as someone who will celebrate her three-year blogging anniversary less than a month from now, I reject that answer. Those of us who have been doing this for a while know there's a whole lot more to this obsession than getting people to look at us and listen to what we say. If that was all we wanted from blogging, we'd have said our pieces, repeated ourselves a few times for good measure, and then let our blogs go dark after just a few months.

I don't think I'm all that different from most other longtime bloggers, so I'm assuming that my primary reasons for blogging must be their reasons, too.

Some of us just like to write. And blogging on an almost-daily basis stretches the writer's imagination and creativity. Coming up with fresh ideas for blog posts week after week and month after month is enormously challenging--and some of us relish that challenge. We like the way it feels when we flex our brain muscles.

Oh, sure, we enjoy the attention we get when readers leave comments and other bloggers link to us. And those of us who have books to sell appreciate the opportunity blogging affords us to build name recognition. But I believe the best way to sell more books is simply to write more books and write them better--which means spending all this time here on the blog is more likely to hold me back as a romance author rather than make me famous. And that, I think, neatly answers the accusation that I blog primarily to get attention for my romance novels.

For me, blogging is fun. That's not to say that it's easy. It's just that I enjoy the challenge of hunting up something worthwhile to write about and then expressing myself as well as I can. I've written a lot of inane posts on this blog in the last three years, but I think I've also written quite a few clever, informative, and thought-provoking ones. I'm still here because I think I've got some more of those good posts in me somewhere--and it's incredibly satisfying to dig for them and find them and drag them out and hammer them into shape and then present them to you, the readers of this blog.

When blogging stops being fun, I'll stop blogging and look for some new ways to strain my brain. Maybe that's what Michael Allen, the Grumpy Old Bookman, is doing right now. Whatever the case, I wish him well.

This blog is unsuitable for young children

According to The Blog Readability Test ("What level of education is required to understand your blog?") NRJW can be read by junior-high schoolers.

Goodness, no, I'm not embarrassed. This will make great ammunition for returning fire the next time some disgruntled reader accuses me of writing a blog post that doesn't make any sense. ("What? You don't understand a blog that's written at a junior high school reading level?")

Here's a sampling of some of the blogs I read regularly:

My pal Booksquare writes at the elementary school level.

Will at MSNBC's Clicked writes at my level. (That is, for junior high kids.)

It takes a high school student to read (my favorite blogger) Terry Teachout's About Last Night. Ditto, Ron and Sarah's Galleycat.

Joe Carter's The Evangelical Outpost is for college undergrads. That's not surprising, as once or twice I've had to look up words Joe has used in his posts. (I never finished college.)

How about your blog?

Bad blogging

According to Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger, your first 10,000 blog posts are your worst. He continues:

Like anything - blogging is something that the majority of us are not brilliant at in our early days. I look back at some of the posts I wrote in my first year of blogging and shudder with embarrassment. The mistakes were spectacular and frequent.

I just checked my post count on Blogger and was disappointed to find that since December 27, 2004, I have logged only 807 entries here at NRJW. At this rate, it will be years and years before I write my ten-thousandth entry and get all of my worst posts behind me.

It's no good telling me Darren was speaking metaphorically because the damage is done: I'm already doubting my abilities as a blogger. All this time, I thought I was doing okay. But what if I really stink at this and I'm the only one who doesn't know it? Goodness, I could be the William McGonagall of blogging!

Way to ruin my afternoon, Darren.

The blogger is IN

Greetings, faithful NRJW readers and stoppers-by. The manuscript that has come between me and blogging for the past couple of weeks is finally finished and in the mail to New York (a day late, and yes, I did send an apologetic e-mail to my editor), so this morning I'm putting my blogging hat back on.

As I was perusing some favorite blogs just now, it struck me that I haven't added any new blogs to my daily(ish) reading list in quite some time. The blogs I'm reading are good blogs, but some of them have begun to bore me, perhaps because I'm getting to know the bloggers so well that I'm no longer finding delightful surprises when I click over.

I am not talking about Terry Teachout, a kind, classy, sensible guy who remains my gold standard for bloggers. Neither am I referring to Joe Carter, who consistently delivers the goods. Or Neil Gaiman, a bloke who could take out his trash and then write a fascinating post about it. Or The Amateur Gourmet, who daily offers up food and nonsense, with pictures. I still have lots of favorite blogs. But I have just deleted a handful of yawn-inducing blogs from my RSS reader (it's not them, it's me) and am looking for some new thrills. Maybe some of you are feeling the same way.

So. Have you read any good blogs lately? Here's your chance to sound off on the ones you've found particularly helpful, inspiring, or entertaining. Leave a comment here and list as many of your faves as you like. (Don't forget to give us the URLs so we can check them out.)

Another thing you might do is tell me what you'd like to see on this blog. I'm open to suggestions, but I'll save us all some time by mentioning two things I'm not willing to do, no matter how sweetly you ask:

Post book reviews. Sorry, but I absolutely stink at writing reviews. I either like a book or I don't. I either finish it or I don't. I can't go on for paragraphs about why I loved or hated a book. Those of you who can have my admiration.

Post pictures of cats. Not in this lifetime. I don't like cats. If that offends you enough to delete my blog from your RSS reader, so be it.

Not sick, dead, or in jail (so far)

I realize there's nothing more boring than a blog entry in which the blogger apologizes for not having time to put up an entertaining or informative post. But I didn't blog yesterday, and if I don't blog today, people will start e-mailing to see if I'm all right.

I'm all right. As of the time stamped on the bottom of this post, I am neither sick, dead, nor in jail. I'm just scrambling to meet a book deadline.

I hope to be back in my blogging chair tomorrow, writing something here that's actually worth reading. Please come back then.

Hey, bloggers! Want a free book?

If you're a blogger, you can be the first kid on your block to snag a copy of my new book. A Season of Forgiveness won't hit store shelves until September 25, but I'll send a free autographed copy to the first 20 people who follow these instructions:

1. Post my book trailer on a blog that has existed for at least six months. Just run through the video, which you'll find at the bottom of this post, then grab the "embed" code you'll see at the end. Paste that into one of your regular blog posts.

2. Mention the book's title, my name, the on-sale date, and then provide a link to the book's page at Amazon and to my website. Do it your way or just copy-and-paste the following:

A SEASON OF FORGIVENESS
by Brenda Coulter
Available in stores September 25.
Order now from Amazon. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0373874537 )
Read most of the first chapter at BrendaCoulter.com

3. That's it! Now just shoot an e-mail to GimmeABook@BrendaCoulter.com. Include your mailing address and a link to your post, and I'll pop your autographed book right in the mail. (No, you don't have to promise to review the book after you read it. But if you do end up posting a review, why not give me a shout?)

Please tell your blogging friends about this offer. I'm earmarking at least twenty books for this promo, but might decide to up that number at a later date. When I hit my limit, I will update this post and say so. (To tell you the truth, while I'm blessed with a lot of blogger friends, I'm not sure how many of them are comfortable posting videos. But it's easy, I promise. Give it a try!)

Questions? Let 'em rip in the Comments. Here's the video:

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UPDATED AUGUST 17, 9:00 AM:

I got a better response than I expected on this, and have hit my limit for free books. My deepest thanks to everyone who posted my video.