Last February I began taking a local writers workshop called Mothers Who Write, taught by two editors of local newspapers.  Much to my surprise, in our first class meeting, they asked us all if we had blogs.

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I did have a blog at that time, though I had allowed it to become inactive.  While I had been planning my son's Bar Mitzvah, caught up in the insanity of all the minute details of the service and the party, I needed an outlet, so I started my blog.  Also, my son had become a little high-maintenance on me, becoming the Bar Mitzvah version of a Bridezilla - a Bar Mitzvahzilla, which is how the blog got its name.

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But my blog was my own little secret.  I wrote it, didn't post it anywhere, didn't share it with anyone, didn't tell anyone about it.  A few weeks after the big event, I wrote the final entries and then stopped writing.  I missed it, but I thought with a name like that, it was just too event-specific to continue.

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My instructors, however, had a different idea.  They told us in no uncertain terms that a serious writer nowadays has to have a blog and an Internet presence.  You can't hide in your house writing and expect the world to find you somehow.  They pretty much shook us down that day to admit which of us had blogs and then they sent the links to our classmates.  I was out of the closet and back in the blog business.

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I now consider this the turning point in my writing.  Having some kind of schedule for writing, both for this blog and my personal blog, having my writing out in the world without absolutely being certain of its reception, this was a big leap for me. 

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Start a blog.  Link to other writer's blogs in your blog.  Promote your work.  Amazing things may happen. 

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Linda Pressman, Blog Editor