To Blog Or Not To Blog by Lauraine Snelling

To BLOG or not to blog, that is a question many of us face. And even as I type this, I have more questions. Like where do all the writers that blog find the time? That is my main one. Am I making too big a deal out of it? But then I write a monthly column called Readin’ & Writin’ from Lauraine for a local newspaper and a month has zipped by and it is due again. I started to write a letter from Ingeborg, my main character in The Red River of the North historical series, with a goal of once a week and I haven’t touched it in months. I miserably failed as a girl at diaries also.

So, what is this writer to do? A woman I talked with at RWA the year before last says she doesn’t have a blog of her own, but appears often on other blogs as a guest, like I am doing here. Sounds like a good idea, but if one is not blog savvy, how do you find other blogs? And when I’ve been asked, I’ve been near to a deadline and hate to take the time away.

I know there are good answers and most of you would probably have them for me since you are doing blogs. I suspect one of the necessities for a blogger is super human discipline. That’s right. The big D word. I heard a woman say one time that she was going to start a diet and she knew she’d be successful because she’d been told it took discipline and she must have a lot of that since she’d never used it.

So, here am I, writing when I should be heading for bed because first off, I conveniently forgot to do this earlier today and secondly---any excuse is a good excuse. Now that I’ve revealed what a wimp I am, let me tell you about my new book that was officially released today but has been in some stores or online lots longer.

A bit of back story here: I love horses, have all my life and never outgrew it like my father said I would. Had my first pony at age five and no horses in my life at the present. That’s another dream to come true. So I sometimes write about horses and kids and romance and you got the picture? When you weave all those threads together like I did in Breaking Free, along with some suspense and humor, you get a good story. I read a little blurb in Reader’s Digest about TRF, Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, cut it out, learned all I could about it online, and filed the info away for sometime. The moral here is keep every idea that comes your way, you never know when it will come in handy.

By the way, Breaking Free is the name of the horse in the book, an ex track star who has gone berserk. I fell in love with him before I met the other characters. Maggie Roberts is serving time for a terrible lapse in judgment and soon up for parole when the rehab program for Thoroughbreds is brought to the prison where she is incarcerated. She joins the program and enter, kicking and screaming, Breaking Free. Add a boy with Spina Bifida who rides at a Therapeutic School, a service dog named Bonnie, a tri-color Basset and a father who will do anything to help his son.

I love this book. Writing it was not easy, but it made me laugh and cry and I hope my readers experience that too.

I write historicals also, in fact, I’m best known for my Red River series. I have written horse books for girls, twenty-one of them, all out of print now. Isn’t that the pits? There are several non fiction books in my past and possibly more. Who knows what will happen next in this crazy business? One other little tidbit. A real town in North Dakota has adopted my fictional town of Blessing and we are doing all kinds of exciting things there, like build a sod house, move a log cabin to the heritage square and have all kinds of events. I have a web site called www.blessingnd.com and we are developing product like shirts and post cards and aprons for a new page to come on www.LauraineSnelling.com.

Isn’t this fun? Guess I’d rather do that stuff than blog so thanks for letting me run on here. And congratulations on all you’ve accomplished and the readers you’ve entertained.

Blessings,

Lauraine Snelling