I’m going to use a blog about writing to talk about blogging about writing (so meta!). So, since we talk a lot about writing and publishing, I figure it fits to talk about some ways we create our author platforms. One of the biggest social media platforms for writers is blogging.

So, when you decide to make a blog, the first thing you do is decide what the theme is. If you’re creating a blog as a writer, then there are some tried and true concepts:

• reading/reviewing
• Author blog
• Writing tips/Publishing journey

I’ve actually done all of them in my time. Before I got deep into the writing world I reviewed books as Readiculous Girl (Yes, I love puns). I gave up reviewing books once writing started taking up more of my time. But I missed the sense of community that comes with blogging. So, after I got my agent I wanted to share that story with everyone and decided to start a blog again. KatChoWrites.com was born. Still, as a solo blogger I found it hard to keep up every week with content and it became more of a write a post whenever inspiration hits kind of a platform. This, in my opinion, is totally fine. If you are creating a blog platform based on your identity as an author, then you shouldn’t feel a need to create content just to have content. It’s fine just to write a post whenever you have news or the blogging muse hits you. The idea of an author blog is one that is following you on your author journey and, as we all know, publishing comes with a lot of waiting. So, there might be times that you don’t have anything new to share or say to your audience as an author.

However, if you get anxious leaving your audience waiting for weeks for more content from you, there are amazing group blogs that allow you to hang out with some of your closest writing friends and discuss your journey together. It’s great because it’s less pressure on any one person to write a post every week. And you’ll often learn a lot from your fellow bloggers. Here are some amazing group blogs that we love:

Publishing Crawl

ChiYA Writers

When we came up with the idea of having a writing blog as WBP, we knew that it was something we wanted to have regular content on. That’s because the main idea for the blog was to have a place where people could get regular inspiration for their own writing. In general, writing blogs like WBP are more about craft and giving advice than the personal, journal-like posts that often show up on an author blog (though we like to think of ourselves as a hybrid since we do gush a lot about things we love). We also liked the idea of consistency because we wanted a place people knew they could come to without fail and find something new to read during regularly scheduled times (for WBP that is Tuesdays and Thursdays). The hope is that this creates a sense of a reliable source and consistent community for our readers. Since we decided to have regular and consistent content, we knew that we would have a responsibility to our readers. That’s where having a group blog comes in handy. Say someone has a deadline and must get line edits to their agent, the others can fill in while they’re busy.

For some ideas of basic blog posts about writing to get you started:

• How you come up with story ideas
• Craft posts about character arcs, world building, dialogue, etc
• How you revise
• How you found your writing community/CPs/beta readers
• How you queried your agent

The best part of sharing your experiences as a writer is that you get to pay it forward. A big reason I made it as far as I have is that I got advice from other author blogs (and Twitter, which will be another post). Publishing is often a mystery, so the small insights into the journey (and both the joys and the pain that comes with it) helps to prepare us for the road ahead. It also ensures that we’re putting our best foot forward to take advantages of any opportunities given to us. Now, I am lucky enough to be in a position to share some of my journey with others, and hopefully it will help a budding writer just like I was boosted up by the ones who came before me.

Regardless of how you decide to format your blog or what kind of topics you choose to talk about there are great benefits to becoming a part of the blogger community. And that’s meeting other people. So, follow other blogs. Comment on people’s posts. Reply when people comment on yours. Sharing your thoughts and journey is just part of the wonderful process of blogging. Take advantage of the community of like-minded people out there who love the same thing you’re talking about.

Do you guys have a reading or writing blog? If so, leave the link in the comments, we’d love to read it!