The Weird Thing about this Blog

The weird thing about this blog is that it has no regular readers. Something I have come to realize recently is that if you have a blog, regularly posting is crucial if you wish to build an audience. I wish that an audience existed for my blog because I would have people to talk to about stuff literary and otherwise.

This blog has existed for almost five years and some posts such as this get a lot of views for some reason. I imagine this is because the majority of people who read George Saunders also happen to be high school english teachers who assign Saunders' stories and none of them want to read stories so they all google search "George Saunders puppy summary" so they don't have to actually think about or read the actual text.

My intention with this blog was never to rack up views. If attaining views was my goal then there would be a lot more posts on here about Minecraft, Donald Trump and the Transformers movies, etc. With that in mind, from this point forward I am going to treat this blog as a kind of diary. The key thing about this diary will be the regularity of the writing that appears on it instead of the irregularity. Eventually maybe an audience will come but that is not my goal. My goal is simply to build a regular writing habit. There will be summaries of short stories that I enjoy and want to emulate not for views but for the joy of breaking apart a story and seeing how it works. Currently I am reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and it is a total blast. It has reminded me of my love for language. I find that a philosophical interest in language is one of the traits that many writers share. I will most likely be writing about Infinite Jest soon because that is what I am currently reading and I am dying to write about it.

Anyways that's it for this post. Signing off to go read more Infinite Jest. I'm on page 103 of 1,079. Wish me luck.

Choosing your Literary Influences

One of the most important questions I ask myself as a writer is "who are my writers?"

In order to write your own fiction it is helpful to have a template for the kind of writing you want to create. This is why its important to read many different writers. This is the best way to find the variation of writing that inspires you, that you would like to emulate.

The fact is that the world is full of writers and everything has already been written about. No matter what you create it will be viewed as related to something that already exists. It is better to accept this idea that nothing is original because the alternative of believing that you are special will most likely lead to disappointment.

"Bad artists copy. Great artists steal."

What artists do you attempt to imitate or steal from in your own work? Lately I have been most focused on the work of Lydia Davis. I find that her focus on psychology is more suited to my writing style.

That's all for today.