Towards a Definition of this Blog

I realized recently that I really ought to be gearing this blog more towards a potential readership. I mean, right now, I don't think anyone really reads the blog besides me. And sometimes my boyfriend, if I say something like "Hey, I just posted on my blog. Do you want to read it?" And really, that's not very effective blogging.

Also, so far, the posts have been rather inward things - just a way for me to keep my literary analysis skills ticking while looking forward to a time when I can do that in a more professional sense. But I'm not just a reader - I'm a writer, too. So shouldn't that come into some play on my blog?

Right now I'm mostly writing poetry - I have a few poems up in accessible places online. Ghoti Magazine and PoetryX.com have poems of mine, and HazMat Literary Review sent me a notice saying they'd like to publish one of my poems, but they've got a backlog of about three years. So check back in three years or so for that one. Actually, I think I got that letter in December, so the wait might be down to 2 1/2 years. Hopefully I can get a chapbook published in the next year or so.

I've been tentatively trying my hand at fiction, as well, but I'm not quite ready to submit that anywhere. I'm hoping to be able to devote more time to writing fiction starting in about a month, after I have definitively finished my teaching and successfully relocated to Los Angeles. I'll be spending the week of July 8th up at the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop, which I'm very excited about, as I've never participated in a writing workshop before. Although I do always THINK I'm going to love feedback on things until I actually get the feedback, and then I feel hurt and annoyed. We'll see if I'm able to break that pattern this summer.

Finally, I want to get into writing book reviews, although with the current "crisis" in book reviewing, I'm not sure if that's going to happen any time soon. Freelancing scares me a bit. But I definitely won't end up writing any book reviews if I sit around waiting for someone to come ask me to write one, so I suppose I'll have to start sending out queries soon.

All right. That was a lot of information. But if I'm going to use this blog the way a "real" blogger should, I think it was necessary.