I’m staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor that seems to be saying, “OK. Great. Now what? Now what? Now what?” What can I possibly write about in a blog that anyone in their right or wrong minds could possibly want to read about and find useful? The obvious answer is exactly that: how to write things in a blog that people in their write or wrong minds might possibly want to read and find useful.
It’s actually not that hard but it will require some preparation, some research, and a bit of soul-searching. Just not necessarily in that order. You have to figure out 3 things: what you know, what you want to know, and what you need to know.
For this post, let’s just concentrate on…
WHAT YOU KNOW: Mining Your Life
On my first day of class at the Musician’s Institute a long, long time ago, I had a crisis in confidence. (I haven’t had many of those and it was scary.) I wandered around listening to all these phenomenal guitar players who were going to be in my class. I’d never been around that many people who could play at least as well as I could (and I can PLAY… confidence, remember?) The experience humbled me. Every one of them seemed to have all these great licks that were so much cooler than my tired, old licks.
One of the teachers — a guitarist that many of us had heard playing on records — got up on the main stage to give us our introduction to the school, to prepare us for the deluge of information we were about to receive, and to direct us to our classes. About halfway through his speech, he said that on his first day of class several years before, he couldn’t believe how many great players were going to be in his class and how badly he sucked compared to them. They all had licks that were so much cooler than his. He said that every single one of us new students were thinking and feeling exactly that same thing: that everyone else had licks much cooler than our own. He was right; I know because we all talked about it afterwards.
The reason is because every one of us had worked on our licks by practicing and playing until they were old to us but those licks were shiny and new to everyone else.
It’s like that with our experiences and with what we know. Our experiences are “normal” and “boring” to us because we lived them. But to someone who hasn’t experienced what we’ve experienced, what we’ve done and what we know is amazing. We know things that they’d like to know and can use. We’ve all lived somewhere and someone might be writing a book that takes place there or has a character from there. We’ve all had jobs and someone might be writing a book about someone with that job. We’ve taken trips, had love affairs and broken hearts, been to school and learned things, been out of school and learned other things. And all of those things are important in the right context.
SPIES!
Sun Tzu (and Holly Lisle) says that if you’re smart, you’ll make extensive use of spies. In writing, spies are people who know things that you need to know for your story to make sense. I got immense pleasure being a spy for someone who was writing about LA. I lived in LA for 13 years and she had a lot of questions about moving there and what it was like. During our conversation, it turned out that one of her characters was a guitar player who’d moved to LA to play in bands and do studio work. Which was a heck of a coincidence because I happened to be a guitar player who moved to LA to play in bands and do studio work. We went through several rounds of questions and answers and it was a lot of fun.
A friend of mine writes a blog that answers medical questions that a writer might have. She’s offering herself up as a spy. She’s mining her life and offering her knowledge and things she’s done so that people can use that to improve their stories.
THE MINING PART
That’s the first source of inspiration for your blogs. Figure out what you know and write about that. Offer yourself up as a spy for other writers. Mine your life and offer the nuggets of experience and knowledge that you have for others to use.
If you’re a mother, write about that; I’ve never been a mother but I have several characters in my books that are and I could always use some nugget of information to make them more believable. If you’ve lived in the same house for a long time, write about that. If you’ve just moved to a new place, write about that. You never can tell what someone will be able to use and be interested in.
Am I a spy you can use? I’m a
- Computer Programmer
- Guitarist
- Songwriter
- Powerlifter
- 3D artist
- Football fan
- Game player
- Dungeon master
- And a heckuva lot more
What are you? Are you a spy I can use?