Blog Food for the Culinary Challenged

by C.K. Thomas

 

In the not so distant past, while serving as “Master Chef in Charge of Family Dinners,” I often sang the refrain, “What will I fix for dinner?” No matter how much you may or may not like cooking, eventually you’ll find you’ve run the gambit of your list of standard menus one too many times. You long to be creative, but that chicken left the nest several quiches ago. Back in the day, I used to call my mom asking for recipes or ring up my nearest back-fence-gossip pal for new ideas from the neighborhood. Today we can just type our way to new cuisine by using a site like allrecipes.com.

So, lesson learned … when you hit a blog drought in your backyard, stop racking your brain and key your way into the Internet idea-trove to get the blogging juices flowing. When I found myself stranded in the middle of cracked caliche with a useless paddle, that’s how I made it rain and floated away on a sea of fresh blog ideas.

It turns out that way back in June 2011 (but still lingering in Internet Foreverland), John Kremer wrote a timeless post listing topics an author might consider blogging about. It’s titled 101 Ways to Blog as a Book Author – Updated Again. I hope you’ll read it if you’re striving to get your name out there through guest blogging while at the same time trying to keep up a “blog of your own.”
My blog tends to suffer neglect while I’m beginning to write a new novel, guest blogging, or marketing what I’ve already written. When I approach the task of giving my blog followers prose that won’t render them groggy, I consult Kremer’s list for creative blog food. I may not write exactly what his list suggests, but just reading through his ideas whets my appetite.

I’m almost ashamed to say the most recent post to my own blog happened nearly a month ago, but I’m delighted to report that I used an idea new to my blog pages. I interviewed Arrowstar’s main character, Star Lance. She owns an antique store in Mineral City, Arizona, but to keep her enterprise alive in such a small town, she also writes historical fiction. Star was thrilled that I’d want to interview her, and the resulting blog reflected her obvious enthusiasm – and mine!

After consulting Kremer’s list and others lurking out there on the Net, I sincerely hope you find a way to set your table in stunning and artfully good taste for a fine blog-food culinary extravaganza. It beats the back-fence method by an Arizona desert mile!

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C.K. Thomas lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Before retiring, she worked for Phoenix Newspapers while raising three children and later as communications editor for a large United Methodist Church. The Storm Women is her fourth novel and the third in the Arrowstar series about adventurous women of the desert Southwest. Follow her blog: We-Tired and Writing Blog.