I Need Some Blogging/Writing Advice

I really didn’t want to break my blogging silence after only a week, because even though I’m dying to blog, not blogging is forcing me to work on some of the things I have up to this point just been thinking about.  But, I am working on one of those things and I’m stuck.  I need your help.

We know I like to write.  And I love fiction.  It is my dream to write and publish novels (in addition to being a professor).  I have been writing novels since I was 16, but I had never actually finished one until the Summer I started this blog.  Since then, I have been working on stuff, but only here and there and without any real direction.

It has been my goal since junior year of college to take writing more seriously.  It’s really the only way to get anywhere.  I need to be writing to get better.  Finishing stuff so that I can show it to people.  Sending out queries, so that I can start a collection of rejection letters.  You know, doing all the stuff it takes to reach my dream of writing and publishing novels.

This blog has already helped me to start taking myself seriously as a writer, but it’s time for me to take the next step.  I think this blog is the platform to do that, but I have been thinking about how I want to do this for a couple weeks now, and I haven’t yet reached a conclusion.  I need some advice from outside my own head.

Let me first say that whatever direction I decide to take with this new project, it will only be in addition to what I’m already doing.  This is a personal blog and I’d never give up my freedom to write about anything I want.

Here’s what I hope to achieve with this project:

1. I want to start taking myself  seriously as a fiction writer.  You know, stop letting all the insecurities and doubt stop me.
2. I want to push myself to keep progressing, putting in the writing time and taking the necessary steps forward.
3. I want to get comfortable with other people reading my stuff (this is a big one).
4. I want to build an audience for my writing. With the way it is now, even in traditional publishing, if you’re going to make it, then you need to bring your own audience.

Here’s the part where I need your help:

I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this, but I have a lot of questions and even though I’m dying to move forward, I don’t yet have a clear feeling for where to go. It is a change for me to start thinking about my blog in a more professional sense, but I think we’ve all grown pretty blog savvy in the last couple years, so I would really appreciate your insight as bloggers, as people who know me, as writers, and as young professionals.

Here is where my thinking is right now.  Jump in wherever you have an opinion.

• The most immediate question is where should I do this? I’m leaning away from starting a completely separate writing blog, because a). Keeping up with two blogs is hard enough, b). I don’t really want to ask you lovely people to read yet another blog, c). this blog already has a clear writing bent, so it could fit in here, and d). it seems most practical if I’m trying to build an audience to capitalize on what I’ve already built and to keep everything in one place.   I have already set up a sub domain at writingtoreachyou.com/writing.  It’s attached to this blog, yet it can function as a separate blog in itself.  I could use that sub domain as a static page with just updates and projects I’m working on or I could let it function almost as a separate blog that I would just call the Writing section of this blog.  My hesitation in keeping it static is that it won’t really help me reach the four goals I’ve outlined above.  My hesitation in letting it function as a blog is that, though the idea of writing for another blog doesn’t bother me, promoting it feels daunting (though it will make sense to do it anyway).  Maybe I could keep the two separate, but find a way to include it all in my one feed (is that possible?).  Or, I could put everything right here on my main blog.

• The next most pressing question is what kind of content do I produce for this project? This one I’m more confident I will figure out as I go along.  I think I’ll include updates, my thoughts on writing in general (the kind of writing posts I’ve always done regularly), my journey down the road to getting published, and then–gulp!–my own fiction (excerpts from the novels, stuff I’m working on, short things I write specifically for the blog).  Probably not book reviews like I see on other blogs.  The focus is really on the writing and on doing something with my writing.

• This all sounds uncomfortably presumptuous to me, but I am uncertain on how to move forward in terms of the divide that exists between Ashley the blogger and Ashley LastName.  It’s two sided.  First, there’s the issue that most of the people I know (well, as far as I know) don’t know that I blog.  I’ve always blogged as if it would one day be in the open, but I am as of right now, not willing to take that step.  It’s a bridge I’ll cross at the point I decide to or it becomes absolutely necessary.  The other side is much trickier.  I don’t feel like blogging under my real name, so that anyone who comes across my blog will know my first and last name, is a possibility for me.  Googling my real name does not just bring up the embarrassing results from the half marathon I ran in 2005.  It brings up the exact names and locations of both of my employers, my school, books and articles of my professors that I’ve been cited in for research help, and basically a million different ways that one person with bad intentions could really mess with me.  The question is do I really want to move forward as a writer under my identity as a blogger with only a first name or would it be better to do this as Ashley LastName?  The answer seems obvious to me.  I’d much rather do this as Ashley the Blogger.  It’s unlikely to ever cause me a problem, but if it does, then I’ll deal with it then.

In all of this, what I most need is your advice in terms of the first bullet.  For the success of this project, where does it make sense to put it, especially considering its relationship to this blog?  I’d appreciate any other thoughts you have. I’m feeling kind of lost in this, so I’d appreciate even just hearing whether it makes sense.  Help a blogging, fiction-writing dreamer girl out!  If you don’t want to comment here, you can always email me at writetoreach[at]gmail[dot]com.