I’ve started a new blog.

It won’t take the place of this blog, though.

It’s about writing.  And the web.  It’s called webstuff4writers.com.

Inspired by ‘Booking Through Thursday’, I’m going to post weekly writing topics that can be used in blogs about writing (like this one).  These topics will usually be posted on a Sunday, unless there’s another day people prefer.

Anyway, here’s the first one, and my answer.

Writing about writing: Week one

Do you think keeping a journal or blog is a useful practice for writers?  Why or why not?

webstuff4writers.com is my new attempt to keep a regular journal.  I’m not good at keeping a regular journal.  This blog in itself is evidence of this.  There’s more evidence of it in a wardrobe of my parents’ place, where there’s a pile of notebooks, each about one quarter to a half full.  In both 2006 and 2007, my New Year’s resolution was to keep a journal every day.  This year, I made it to March.

That said, I do think that journaling is a useful practice for those who want to write.  A lot of my short stories have come from journal and blog entries – both from those entries where I’ve recorded something that’s happened to me, and those entries that I recorded something I’ve observed happening in the world at large.  Some of the scene-setting in Lessons to Learn was based on my travel journal from my time in Korea, and from the emails I sent home which became almost like a travel blog.

The other advantage that I’ve found is that keeping a journal is a good way to start writing each day, and that when I’ve written one piece – whether it’s non-fiction, stream-of-consciousness, or a poem –  it’s easier to write something else.  If I had all the time in the world for writing then, this process would be ideal.  However, most days there’s only half an hour before work, a couple of hours after it.  And then, if I spend too much time blogging or writing about my day, then no novel writing gets done at all.

Still, I’ll give webstuff4writers.com a go, and see how long it lasts.  Hopefully others will find it useful.  Hopefully I’ll managed to keep it out of that virtual wardrobe, where abandoned blogs go to die, for a couple of months at least.

In the absence of my own blog-content ideas, I’ve picked up this question from Booking Through Thursday.

Okay… picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

For me, when I’ve been sad or worried or stressed, it’s always been novels by John Marsden. In some respects it’s about the minimisation of my own problems. My boyfriend may have dumped me, but least my country isn’t at war, like Ellie’s inTomorrow, When the War Began; I may have a cold, but at least I haven’t been scarred by acid as Marina has been inSo Much to Tell You.

But, after reading the same books multiple times in the years since I started high school, there’s also some comfort now in just knowing the stories, reading the words that I’ve read before, the certainty of what’s going to happen at the end.

For me, books are a way of learning about new worlds – different people, different places – but, at the same time, they’re also a good way of escaping the worst-case scenarios on this one.

Reading through my online subscriptions this morning, I came across a YouGov survey reported in the Guardian which found that more people from the UK aspired to being an author than a sports personality, pilot, and in fact, any other job.

Why’s there such a widespread appeal in authorship, I wonder.  The article goes on to suggest that the job’s popularity might be something to do with the success of JK Rowling in recent years.  And sure, we’ve all heard the story of the struggles and the rejections before the million pound income, but that’s unlikely to be a reality for all authors (or even most).

There’s the idea of creating something that other people will consume.  But don’t artists do that as well?  Film-makers?  Television producers?  And I’m told that a lot more people watch films and television.  Perhaps, then, it’s that books stay around longer.  Antique books do have a certain appeal, after all.  The classics of the book variety have been read for hundreds of years.  But surely I’m not the only one to be less than enchanted with a 10 year old paperback, one where the paper has turned yellow and the pages are falling out.

I guess when I was young and dreaming of being a writer, it did seem to be somewhat of an easy job.  I imagined the days disappearing as I tapped away on my keyboard, the words flowing effortlessly.  Then I learnt about writer’s block, and word counts, and the edits that need to be done.  And marketing, and talking about your writing, and all that scary stuff.

And yet, I still want to write.  I’d still be in that 10% who’d rather be a writer than a sports personality or event organiser, and it’d great if one day I could call ‘novelist’ my day job.  There’s just something about writing, I guess.

For anyone else out there who writes, or would like to, what is it for you?