Book Bloggers: The Best Friends I’ve Never Met by Karen Harrington

Once upon a time, I co-wrote a novel with my best friend’s brother. I’d never met him and he lived a thousand miles away. We did all our work over email. After we finished it, we continued to be email pals. One day he wrote to me on the occasion of my birthday saying, “I am grateful for our friendship even though I don’t know you. So I guess I’d say, of all the people in the world who would pass me on the sidewalk that I wouldn’t recognize, I’d prefer that person I not know be you.”

I still smile when I read that.

When I think about the friendships I have as a result of the book blogging community, I realize I feel the same way.
I am grateful for your friendship, even though I don’t know you.

This strange and anonymous friendship began when I started blogging about three years ago. My debut novel had just made its way into the world. I did a blog tour, which was, heretofore, unknown to me. What was a blog tour? How did one tour? Through that experience, I was introduced to a great many bibliophiles. After the heady rush of the blog tour died down, I found that I still like visiting those blogs who’d hosted me. Each morning would start this way. I’d pull my grab-and-go clothes from the closet. You know the ones. They have lots of Spandex and don’t really herald you as a fashionista. I’d put them on. Make my kids’ lunches. Pull my hair in a pony-tail and take the kids to school, trying hard not to make early morning eye contact with other parents in their own grab-and-go clothing. Then I’d come home, pour a second cup of coffee and start my morning visiting blog friends who didn’t know (or care) that I was disheveled.

I stalked their posts, relished the new author interviews and made new book discoveries. I found the subsequent book reviews more genuine than those I read in the New York Times Book Page. So I kept reading. Kept adding to my growing blog list. Eventually, I stopped talking about my book on my blog and began talking about the larger world of books. I stepped into the established book blogger community and shared my thoughts and perspectives. I don’t post book reviews, however. Like so many other writers, I am a gentle critic. I can’t stop thinking about the hours behind the keyboard that it took to birth any book. Even a bad one.

Now three years on, I find I still have a similar routine. I write for the first hour and then go visit blogs as my special reward for getting in my daily word count. Today, I enjoy book blog reviews for more academic reasons. What do you mean, you ask? Well, I’ve been to school and taken Masters classes in novel writing. I’ve attended writing conferences. I’ve read books about writing. Some of those classes and books have you dissect a novel, chapter by chapter. The goal, I think, is to try and unlock the construction of the novel and attempt to understand how the writer crafted his story. To see if she used certain words repetitively to create an image. Having participated in all of these activities and written six novels and 12 screenplays, it’s this writer’s opinion that reading voraciously trumps all of those exercises and studies. (I wonder if some book bloggers aren’t going to bust out and write their own novel one day!) With the book blogger community, I can now go and read what others think of that SAME book. I’ve just read. Do we have the same opinion? Did they stop reading after 50 pages? Did the tone of the book turn them off? Was it the ending that made or spoiled the whole book? It’s like having a book club discussion at my fingertips.

I enjoy how each blogger has a unique way of evaluating or rating a book. Some separate their thoughts into categories. I benefit from seeing a paragraph delineating the bloggers thoughts on the “Entertainment Value” vs. “The Writing.” I like headings that note “The Good Stuff” and “The Not So Good Stuff.” I like stumbling upon an opening line that mirrors what I thought – “If I read another book where a woman is mildly tired of her almost perfect life, I’m going to barf.” I instantly feel kinship with that blogger. Or other bloggers who pose their opinions on past tense vs. present tense, stating their disdain for the phrase “I am sweating” over the simple “I found myself sweating.” I like seeing how readers respond to those differences because, as a writer, I want to try everything, experiment with as many different writing styles as I can before I die.

No novel is perfect, but if you read several reviews citing the same flaw, it’s a terrific item to file away in one’s writer brain. I have an established Editing List I use when revising. It includes the kinds of mistakes or weaknesses I often make. But bloggers have their own lists. For example, too many casual glances, looking down, waking up from a dream, describing themselves by looking in the mirror, staring out the window, tying shoes, exclamation points, dropped subplots, or heroes refusing medical treatment after being wounded. (Of course, if you find that I do these things, you know, it’s probably stylistically correct and central to the story.)

I’m sincerely looking forward to continuing my online education and edification via book blogs. I hope book blogging never goes out of style. I have too many friends I don’t know.

Karen Harrington is the author of the novels JANEOLOGY and SURE SIGNS OF CRAZY (out Spring 2013 from Little, Brown Books). She blogs at www.scobberlotch.blogspot.com