This is Just Like Me Writing. Only Without the Beard. Or the Robe. Or the Quill.

Given how extremely rarely I DO blog these days, perhaps I should change the title to “Why I Sometimes Blog” or “Why I Used to Blog” or even “Why I Mean to Blog Even Though I Never Get to It.” But you know, short simple titles are best, so I’ll stick with the original.

There were a couple of reasons this was on my mind lately. First, there was a lively discussion among the fabulous writers in my super sekrit writer’s lair about blogging. Some of the authors there are published, some are under contract with their first book coming soon, some are in the query trenches, and some are still working away on drafts. But regardless of where we are in their writer’s trajectory, many of us blog. Some do it to gain potential readers, some hope to grab the eye of a roving editor or agent, some want to get friendly with other authors.

Then, there’s the fact that I’m crazy batshit totally nuts busy these days. I have work projects coming out of my ears. I have revisions going on for one book that I’ve been sitting on for a year and I really feel has potential. I have another book out in the hands of agents. I finished another book and reallyreallyreally want to get back to revisions on it, but I am sitting on my hands until I finish the other project.

Then there’s this:

Yeah. They keep me fairly busy.*

So why do I blog?

The reason is pretty simple. I like to.

I think about books, and about writing, far more than any of my non-writing peeps want to hear. I like to talk about books I love, to rant about subjects that get me nuts (voting, anyone?) and mostly, to feel like I’m not alone on this peculiar journey I decided on one lovely September day.

Right now, it doesn’t matter if I have five followers or 500, if I keep to a strict blogging schedule or go months in between. I do it simply because it gives me another place to flex these muscles, to talk about books, to write.

So unless I have some compelling reason to either quit cold turkey or start blogging with serious commitment, I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing. And hope that someone somewhere is enjoying the ride as much as I am.

*fairly busy is a code for spending every waking moment shlepping one or another of them to a hockey rink or soccer field. A word you young ones out there? Don’t raise well-coordinated kids. It will only come back to haunt you.