Blogs Useful? Hhmmnn...

When you're a writer and you research the things writers are supposed to do, you find out that writing blogs is one of them. So after doing it for a couple years, or even more, I ask myself the question: Is it useful? Well, to be sure, I have found other blogs useful. Particularly the blogs of literary agents, other writers, editors, and publishers. It's one of the main ways I learned how to write a publishable novel, and the ins and outs of the publishing process.

I have also found that after reading some of these blogs on a daily basis, that I don't really like the people who write blogs, (at least the ones that I've been reading.) It seemed as though, after a good length of time, you get to know a lot about those people. It is very interesting to me, that, again, after reading these blogs daily after some years, you get to know some things about those people that I don't think they wanted you to know. Maybe they do, maybe they don't really care, and maybe it's just the way everyone is, but their foibles eventually get exposed when they write a daily blog.

One of things I have never liked about some people is the way they use profanity. Now I'm no angel. I will use profanity sometimes, too, but not on a daily basis, and never in my blog. If I were to stub my toe, for instance, and it was a very painful stubbing, I will probably use a variety of combinations of profane words. But I don't when I'm talking casually to someone. Maybe I will if it's someone I am close to, or spend a lot of time with, but not someone who is just an acquaintance, or  someone at work, and certainly never with someone I don't know.

I had a principal, a few years ago, at a different school than the one I'm at now, who used profanity as part of her daily speech patterns, and I just found her to be a dirty-mouthed woman. It certainly didn't convey any professionalism on her part. Maybe she was trying to be one of the "good ol' boys" or something, but again, she just came across as a foul-mouthed lady to me.

Likewise, when I read blogs that use the "F" word as a matter of course, for no other apparent reason, than just being a part of the blogger's casual vocabulary, it gives me a very bad impression of them. And these blogs, again, are women bloggers. Women literary agents, that is.

Look, I said I'm no angel. But when it comes to being professional, imo, you don't use profanity. If you're with friends and having a grand ol' time, on your own time, no problem, but it's just not something that you do if you want to convey professionalism. It's just the way I feel. And the same thing is true in your writing. As an example, there's a book for which I used the "look inside" feature, and the first sentence of the book, the "F" word is used, not because it was someone's dialogue, which I know is necessary if you want to be realistic, but in that book it was part of the narrative.

Nope. I stopped reading and thought to myself, this person is not a good writer, and that was that. And there are a lot of other things you learn about people in their blogs, but this post is already too long. I'll get to that another day.