How I Went from Novelist to Blogger, then From Blogger to Novelist
Topic: blogging & writing
At the same time St. Martin’s Press bought my manuscript (December of 2003), I’d been developing a sit-com for MTV based on a series of short animated cartoons I’d made for atomfilms.com called "Annibelle Scoops." It was about the life of a pop starlet and her mother/manager compared to whom Lady MacBeth is a slacker. For a change Fortune seemed to be smiling upon me, I have to say. I must have made the mistake of saying so out loud, because, just like that, Fortune did an about-face. As noted in the previous entry, reality soon set in with the novel. Reality also ended the MTV show. Literally. MTV decided to go with reality shows. That precluded my show (a euphemism for: it was dead).

It did not, however, preclude a show about the life of an actual celebrity. A then-novel way of spurring interest in the concept: a blog. Very quickly, the blog chronicling the stranger-than-fiction life and times of the “Rance”—a pseudonym for an actor whose identity would always remain a mystery—had hundreds of thousands of hits per day. So things were looking good. Or so I thought, and, yeah, made the mistake of saying aloud. Almost immediately the HBO show “Entourage” debuted and did well enough to end the Rance project.

In the process though I’d gotten an idea how I might use blogging to garner an audience for my pirate novel: a maritime-themed blogged. I’d also discovered I loved blogging. The result was Gus Openshaw?s Whale-Killing Journal the chronicle of an Oakland cat food cannery worker’s vendetta against the sperm whale who ate his wife, young son and arm.

Above: a scrimshaw from Gus Openshaw?s Whale-Killing Journal by the harpooner, Flarq.

I had no idea how the story would go when I began. Writing it (blogging as “Gus”) was very much like a kid playing sea captain. The readers’ advice to Gus and discussion about his predicaments made it even more fun. Writers need no longer lament that theirs is a lonely art. And the writing itself was enhanced. As anyone who has solicited opinions from their real-life friends on a new boyfriend or girlfriend can attest, honest feedback is hard to come by. Same story with as little as a limerick you’ve written. On a blog, however, with the buffer of anonymity, readers are less inclined to spare your feelings. Also, they had a vested interest in my story. They were on the adventure too. When Gus did something stupid or unmotivated, they let him hear about it. When Gus did something right, or that moved them, they patted him on the back (digitally). As a result, I wrote much more than a promotional piece for my novel. I should note that thanks solely to the blog’s readers, Pirates of Pensacola went to #1 on Amazon’s Early Adopter List, for books prior to their publication. Much better though, “Gus Openshaw’s Whale-Killing Journal” was a treasure in terms of learning about writing. Also the journal will likely be published as a novel in and of itself in 2006 (details to come). So as it turns out, MTV killing my show was a great thing. Although now that I have just put that in writing…