fictional blogging

Jim McClennan, How to write a blog-buster, the Guardian (8 April 2004). I found this to be a very interesting article and am linking to it so I can read it again - and some of the fictional blogs mentioned.

This is something which I would like to do, but I'm still pondering a manageable and sustainable way to approach it. I did dabble with This is not me and New Dark Ages, which I've discontinued and taken off the web. It is more difficult to maintain a blog "in character", at least for me. I tend to be more self-conscious about my fiction writing, which makes it more difficult to create even 1-3 entries a week.

To succeed as a fictional blogger, I would need to appreciate that it is a fundamentally different and paradoxical form of writing. It is part improvization. It needs to be good, spontaneous and most importantly, not belaboured or over-edited. I believe strongly that fictional blogs should not be revised in any significant way after they have been written. It will have flaws which fixed writing would never countenance, but this is what makes them real and engaging. Although it possible to publish a novel, short story or poem on blogging software, this would only be an innovation in the means of publication, not an innovation which took advantage of any characteristics of the blog medium.

I certainly would like to try this again. I'm mulling over aspects of characters, setting (as a real blogger, this is something I don't need to invent) and plot - and how to change these artificial ingredients into something that's real.