Thanks to Mireyah's suggestion, I've added a program to my blog to help with commenting. It's called Intense Debate, found at intensedebate.com, and was very easy to add. Of course, I'm not sure how well it works. Today will be the trial run. If I don't like it, I'll get rid of it.
Here's the plus side for me: I will be able to respond to each comment individually without getting back on my blog. It emails the comments to me, and when I respond, it starts a 'thread' on the blog. And here, I believe, is the plus side for you. In the past, if you wanted to know if I responded to your comment, you either had to come back and check my blog frequently, or check the "email follow-up responses" box before you sent the comment.
I did the email thing a couple of times. The problem was, I'd get twenty emails from one blog, all from different people responding to the blog, none of them responding to my comment. It ended up being more burdensome than helpful. I haven't tried it yet, obviously, but I think with this program, if you select "subscribe to replies" or whatever it says, you'll only be emailed what happens in your comment thread.
Again...today's the trial run. I haven't seen it in action yet, so we'll see. Oh, one thing I've noticed: you can't see the comment form unless you click on the blog post. There's no 'add comment' link on the main page.
On to the group blog! Steph's blog today is about planning your journey. In her case (and mine), it's writing. So, let me share with you a brief history and my master plan.
I wrote Perilous in junior high and lost the manuscript for several years. I figured it was a dead novel. After college, I started writing again. I wrote Branca (whose title I am about to change) and loved this book. It is the first of a planned fairy tale series. My immediate plan was to get Branca ready for publication.
In the meantime, low and behold, I found an ancient copy of Perilous. The book needed a lot of work, but I enthusiastically felt I could do something with it. And thus, my game plan emerged. I saw Perilous as being a niche book, something for a smaller audience. I would get published as a starter novel (kind of like a starter home), and then work on finding a national publisher for Branca.
So far, it's working, but a little differently. My publisher had a much bigger vision for than I did. We're marketing it and publishing it for a national audience, not a niche audience. I'm still on track with Branca, which I am at the moment re-writing and preparing to query sometime this year.
From there, I've got lots of novels. I see all of them as being young adult fiction, and I don't worry about genres. Fads go in waves, and if nobody wants a certain genre now, they will in ten years. I'm excited by the prospect of working with different publishers, as each one has a different plan to help me reach my goals.
And you? Whether it's writing or your chosen career path, what's your master plan?
