I've been wondering what makes people respond to blogs. There are several that I check almost daily, and some gets hundreds of responses and some get almost none. One of my favorites is Charlie Stross. He has a robust and regular posting that is usually thought provoking on purpose and he has a very intellectual group of followers that love to mix it up. I don’t feel smart enough to even post on his site, but I love to lurk. Another of my favorites is new author Mary Robinette Kowal, who is also very regular in her postings, but I don’t think I‘ve ever seen more than a handful of responses to her posts. She isn’t fishing for responses and it doesn’t seem to matter to her. I have no idea how many hits she is getting, but whoever they are rarely engage with her. I think she’s fascinating. I love it when people post a response. It feels strangely validating. I see some bloggers respond to every response, that’s nice, but unfortunately I don’t have access to my blog from work and I travel and work long hours some days, and sometimes I can’t access the site for a day or two. I like to give back the love to the people that respond, I really do appreciate that they took the time to come to my blog, read it and reply to it. Know that I really love to see responses and if I were able I would reply to all of them. What I do try to do is reciprocate but following back and retweeting their blogs on Twitter. I like to help promote my friends. One of my favorite bloggers is Jami Gold and she did something this week to celebrate her 1st anniversary as a blogger and started a contest. She actually had more people than ever before post a reply on her blog. I think it surprised her, but I know she is happy about it. I come full circle back to why I put stuff on here. The idea was to have a destination for people to come to when I actually publish my book. I know I like interacting with my favorite authors and have been fortunate enough to engage with a few of them. One of my all-time favorites is CJ Cherryh, and she’s had an internet presence for a very long time. She started her own website maybe 15 years ago. She now has a very active blog and has even started her own company, Closed Circle, to release her backlist and some new content with her partners, Jane Fancher and Lynn Abbey. They aren’t nearly as well known to the world as JK Rowling, but they beat her to the idea of selling their stuff directly by a year. Anyway, I wanted all this laid out in advance because I’m hopeful of some limited success and a follow-on career as a writer, and wanted to have my readers have a place to come and interact with me. With this place already established I could focus on writing more and making new internet friends. I wasn’t sure what to blog about and it’s been all over the map, but that’s ok too. I’m just trying to share stuff that I’m thinking about. I’m happy if it strikes a chord with others. Why do you blog? How do you feel about people responding to your posts? The funny thing is I think you have to have a blog to respond to this blog. I wish I could see everyone that reads, even the ones that don’t have a Blogger account. Just curious. I’m travelling this weekend to visit my parents. My Dad is having some health issues, and I want to see him before he has surgery. It may be a few days before I have internet access again. I hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July weekend! Clear Ether!

It was a struggle this week for blogging and writing.  I did manage to get 3000 words this week and passed the 400 page mark, but begrudgingly.  I am in the climax and trying to get it right, and its coming a little at a time.  My muse can be stubborn at times.  That coupled with work and home events kept my mind from any productive blogging, if there is such a thing.  The grand total right now sits at 96100 words. I twittered plenty, but it was mostly retweeting.  I did come across this: Squishy Moonrise from Space And posted this video of one of my favorite songs form a band that broke up after one album: Big Dismal - Reality, rumor has it they are getting back together. Kam Weiland had this excellent post about the 3 Traits of a Successful Writer Fake Mars Astronauts are close to arriving at Fake Mars NASA posted this about Zeta Ophiuchi -- Runaway Star Plowing Through Space Dust Pretty dang awesome! Nanotech News -another step toward complex nanomaterials that assemble themselves Betelgeuse and 2012

The publishing landscape has changed dramatically in the last two years and continues to change.  Distribution was always tough for a small publishing house and forget it if you were trying to self-publish.  But that's all changed now.  Dean Wesley Smith has a section on his website devoted to debunking the myths of writing and publishing a book.  Here is one gem I found in the comments section below his post about self-publishing:

Put your novel up on Kindle. Cost: Free Put your novel up on Smashwords, which gets you to Sony, Nook, iBook, and other places. Cost: Free Put your novel through CreateSpace in trade paperback form in POD. That gets it to Amazon. Cost: Free (or $39.00 if you want better distribution into all stores.) Put your novel through LighteningSource in trade paperback form in POD. That gets it to Ingram. Cost: around $100.00 No reason for a self-published author these days to pretend to be a traditional publisher and go into the produce model. And besides, why do it until you’ve tried to sell it to a traditional fiction publisher first?

     I renamed the book and rearranged the format of the Blog today.  I've been waffling on the title for awhile and finally made the plunge.      I really should be writing instead of goofing around with this blog, but I am easily distracted.  I'm happy to be back to writing the first book, I missed the characters and they are anxious to get going with the story.  I really need to buckle down and just write.  I was doing a little editing today and was happy with a lot of what I had written.  It's always nice to go back and say,"Wow, did I write that?  It's not bad."  It's a hellava lot better than, "I really suck, I should just quit writing."  I know there are weak areas, but I hope to clean those up on the edits.       I've been doing a lot of reading about editing lately.  There is a lot of advice out there, and I think you can probably find someone that will tell you what you want to hear, follow the rules - never follow the rules, write the way you speak - people don't speak they way it will work in book format, edit as you write - don't edit till you finish.  It really boils down to what is going to help your story not suck and following your heart.  If you are cut out to do this and make money at it, I think you will either have it or don't (You still need to learn a lot more or just write for yourself).  I haven't figured out which one I am yet, I have to actually finish a manuscript first.  I am not stopping now till I finish and hopefully I can do it by the end of January.       Then the wonderful task of editing and editing again and again, then having someone else edit it.  I actually can't wait to get to that part.