On author blogs . . . in moderation

I finished another chapter! *bounce*

This was an important chapter, because it provides the motivations for what all the characters will be doing from here on out. I hope I pulled it off well.

I'm about ready to start working on my query letter. Not ready to begin querying, mind you, but to give some thought to the letter. The leader of my local writers' group asked me if I would lead a discussion/training/critique on query letters a month from now. What the hell do I know? Just what I read online. I'm not any kind of expert until I write a query that, you know, lands an agent or something. But I have a big mouth and love to point people to the resources I have found, so I guess I walked into that one.

I read something on a blog--I can't remember if it was Kristin Nelson's or Lucienne Diver's, and I think I was browsing old posts, so it could be hard to find out which--that talked about how you should not blog about your book once an agent starts shopping it around, because you'll undercut his or her bargaining position with editors if you blog about rejections, how long s/he's had it, and so forth. Makes sense, but it got me to thinking afterward that any blogging about a WIP--unless it was already sold and being written on deadline--had that potential. After all, if I finish writing it in June and get an agent who's still shopping it around in March, that will send the same message, no? Oh, well. She didn't mention blogging before you had an agent, so I guess I'll take my chances. It's not like it matters--my WIP will sell in a heartbeat and it won't be an issue, neh? ;)

Speaking of lost blog posts, I read a post by some guy about how he uses hypnagogia to tap into his creativity, and it resonated with me, because it reminded me a lot of what I do (though I didn't know there was a fancy name for it), but when I went to look for it again, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd read it. *sigh*

And then there's lost blog comments. I posted two comments on Lynn Viehl's blog today, one that was reasonably thought out and one that was a throwaway. She moderates her comments, so neither showed up right away. A few hours later, my second post, the brief one, showed up, but not my first one. Lost in the ether?

I'm not sure how I feel about the practice of moderating comments. There are two blogs I read that do this: Viehl's and SF Novelists. On SF Novelists, because they're several writers on a single blog, it can sometimes take days for a comment to show up. I find it very off-putting to wait for days for my expression of sympathy or whatever to be deemed worthy of appearing on the page. On other blogs I read, I see dialogues break out between the various different comment-writers, and hey, sometimes even between comment-writers and the blog author. Isn't that the point? A little back in forth, instead of the stream of thoughts only flowing in one direction? But how can any sort of dialogue break out when comments have to sit in a holding pattern waiting to be approved?

Of course, the luxury of being a complete unknown is that nobody is showing up on my blog just be be insulting. I've dealt with generic trolls on other internet forums, but never my very own stalker-troll. I can see where that would be hurtful, a drain on psychic resources, what have you. So who knows how I'd feel if I had that experience. I know Elizabeth Bear keeps threatening to shut down commenting, and Steven Gould has had at least one troll pop up on his site. Is the benefit of shutting down trolls worth the price of shutting down conversation, though?

My instinct is to feel that it isn't. We'll see how I feel about it if the shoe is ever on the other foot, though.

Say, where the heck does that expression come from?