Within the past few days both David Montgomery and Mark Terry have written that they plan to cut back on blogging. I would've mentioned it earlier but I haven't been blogging.

No, I haven't caught whatever's going around. At least I don't think so. Mary and I are working on the last few chapters of the novel in progress. We're at the point where discrepancies, explanations, all manner of deficiencies, can no longer be shoved aside to be dealt with "later." Later is now. And now has demanded every bit of inspiration I can find.

Blogging is writing. Time spent arranging words for a blog, or even coming up with ideas for a blog, is time that's unavailable for fiction. There's no way around it.

I can put the covers of our novels on my JournalScape page and pretend I'm doing publicity, others might argue they blog to warm up their author muscles, etc etc. But if you're trying to write fiction professionally then writing fiction is work. When when you're blogging you're not working.

Blogging is only fun -- and for fiction writers probably only justifiable -- in moderation. There's no way I could come up with fresh content every day, write at essay-length, or polish entries like I would if they were intended for publication.

There are people who are primarily bloggers. For those of us who don't fall into that category, blogging is self indulgence. I suspect some of the best bloggers don't write for an audience. They write for themselves but let the audience look over their shoulders