Blogs of Interest. . . .

For a couple of weeks now I've been meaning to post the links to two student blogs that I think show how Clarkies can take advantage of this medium. The first is Lana Petersson's from her semester abroad last spring in Mexico; she's back this year as a senior doing an Honors Thesis, which is a short novel based on some of the experiences she posted. In other words, her blogging is furnishing material for her fiction: neat trick, no? Many authors--virtually all those who have become media-savvy--create web sites for their published works, but an increasing number have been using their posts as "rough drafts" for their books (here's my friend and blog mentor Stephanie, for example)--mostly non-fiction, but some fiction as well. Writers like Lana find that this inverted process--from blog to book--bears tasty fruit.

The other blog is Susan Monroe's Sweet As; she graduated in '05, and chronicles her years since then in New Zealand and Antarctica, as well as this past summer in the Rockies. She's intrigued by travel writing, and the blog offers a tremendous opportunity to try out her descriptive capabilities as well as develop a traveling persona.

All you people who want to write: take a lesson from all three of these writers, and practice, practice, practice! A blog is an ideal place to do it!

--Jay

Update: I forgot to add that all three blogs have wealths of photos--displayed in various formats. That, says Stephanie, is one of the primary requirements for a successful blog.