Blogging is Forever

First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS to our Rhys for winning the Agatha for Best Historical Mystery for her fabulous mystery The Last Mrs. Summers!!! Woo hoo!!!

JENN McKINLAY: I was reading an article about Twitter turning fifteen the other day and it casually referenced an article about Twitter’s arrival which predicted that it would be replacing blogging because blogging was dead. Deader than dead. I find this hilarious because Twitter is really just a micro-blog. Some would say a micro-blog of hate, rage, and intolerance, but I digress...

I am happy to report that we appear to still have a beating heart here at Jungle Red Writers, so it got me to thinking, what blogs or vlogs (yes, I’ll include vlogs because it is 2021) are you devoted to?  (Present JRW blog excepted, of course).

Here are my fave of faves: 

Humans of New York: It is exactly what it says it is. A blog devoted to the human beings who inhabit New York. It is brilliantly written and I have gotten so many story ideas and character studies from it. It's truly brilliant.

www.humansofnewyork.com

Adventurous Kate: A woman traveling the world alone and sharing how she does it. This blog is so much fun but it also helped me tremendously to write last year's Paris is Always a Good Idea and my upcoming August release Wait For It, both being stories about women who travel to faraway places on their own.

Bailey Sarian: This is a vlog that I stumbled upon about six months ago while researching mystery stories to use as inspiration for my books. Bailey is a former Sephora makeup wizard who decided to combine her love of makeup, mysteries, and murder (her mom was a 911 dispatcher) in a vlog. She debuted in 2013 doing makeup tutorials but busted out in 2019 when she started discussing mysteries during her tutorials. Brilliant, right? She now has over 10M followers on FB, 5M on YouTube, and 2.5M on Instagram. Plus, she's a hoot and she manages to keep her private life very private. Kudos, girl!

What about you, Reds? What are your fave blog/vlogs? 

LUCY BURDETTE: I feed my Paris obsessions with David Lebovitz, Dori Greenspan, and Secrets of Paris blogs. I love the Washington Post and New York Times cooking columns. And blogs about books and writing are too numerous to mention, but some I try to keep up with are the Wickeds, Maurice on Books, Lesa Holstine, Nathan Bransford… Oh and some on politics and Covid. Good lord, it’s no wonder I fall behind in my work!

www.wickedauthors.com

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hmm. That is a good question, because..hmm. The New Yorker, certainly. Washington Post. NY Times. Career Authors. (yes, BSP) I tend to look at blogs when they cross my bandwidth randomly...not so many that I look at daily. 

 (And speaking of BSP: got to say--GO Jungle Red! I just checked our stats, and we’ve had NINE POINT THREE MILLION VIEWS! So--aw. Thank you, all.)  Eager to hear what everyone else is also reading!    

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Yeah, Jenn, I remember when “Blogs are dead” was all the rage. But you know what? If you have a blog, you can’t be deplatformed, or censored, or hand your work over to a social media platform OR lose everything because it’s gone belly-up (MySpace, Friendster and Vine, anyone?) Now of course, the new hot thing is Substack, which is… blogging. Blogging you can get people to pay for instead of monetizing with ads. 

*Public service announcement: Jungle Red Writers does not charge for content, post paid content, solicit ads, have sponsors OR use affiliate links. Although the number of times we raved over Downton Abbey and Bridgerton, you would think we should get a kickback.*

www.whatever.scalzi.com

My faves? The Wickeds, John Scalzi’s Whatever, Phil Are Go! For hysterical photoshopped paperback covers, The Bulwark and the Daily Beast for political commentary (free and subscription content available.) Like Hank, I also tend to read blogs (and “Substack newsletters”) that cross my path on Twitter. I should really start keeping track of them; I tend to read a great article and then forget the author's name and so can never find it again.

HALLIE EPHRON: I used to follow Tom & Lorenzo, the “fabulous and opinionated” fashion and pop culture bloggers, but then celebrities stopped going out in fabulous clothes and the runway got mothballed. 

It’s not a blog but close - The Conversation, a New York Times opinion column that used to feature David Brooks (conservative) and Gail Collins (not conservative) in a very interesting back and forth. So refreshing, people from different spots on the opinion spectrum cracking jokes and talking about substantive issues without insulting each other. I like it less well now that Brooks has taken a leave and Collins is writing with someone a bit less tart. 

And every once in a while Facebook serves up a new Randy Rainbow musical spoof. Also not a blog but irresistible.

www.randyrainbow.com

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I read David Lebovitz, too, because, Paris AND food. I subscribe to Mark Bittman's new blog/project, The Bittman Project (a bit redundant there!) which is a community driven forum on cooking and eating sustainably. Then there's Vorcaciously, and Bon Appetit's daily posts. Also Eater London. (I'm seeing a thread here…) And I subscribe to three newspapers. Honestly, even making a dent in the Sunday New York Times takes up way more time than I actually have. On a sillier note, I follow a vlog called Thatcher Joe by British YouTuber Joe Sugg. It's sweet and funny and always makes me smile, which is a good thing after even skimming those newspapers.

RHYS BOWEN:  I confess to little time for reading blogs after I’ve tackled the daily newspapers. I do love Career Authors and enjoy Travels with Twist as she is a good friend. I read the Daily Om and sometimes the Daily Beast— the first to calm me from the second!

JENN: I agree with Rhys. It's all about balance.

So, how about you, Readers? What blog/vlogs fill you up?

Wicked Inspiration

LUCY BURDETTE: Three of our pals from the Wicked Authors blog are celebrating book releases on June 30--and that means we should celebrate too!

Cate Conte (my Connecticut neighbor Liz Mugavero) is releasing Witch Hunt, the first in her new Full Moon Mystery series about a young shop-owner in a Connecticut harbor town (hmm…) who’s about to discover a mysterious power that runs in her family.

Maddie Day (frequent Reds commenter Edith Maxwell) brings us Nacho Average Murder, the seventh book in her Country Store Mystery series. In this book Maddie takes the girl out of South Lick, Indiana bound for the west coast. I wonder if murder will follow?

Barbara Ross (my Key West neighbor) contributes Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. Released as a Barnes & Noble exclusive last year, this first in series is now available from all retailers in mass market paperback, ebook and audiobook, worldwide.

Take it away, Wickeds

Lately we’ve been talking about inspiration. Not the giant concepts we choose to explore in story, but the little flashes, the anecdotes that stay with us and provide ideas, sometimes foundational ideas, for our books.

Barb: I wish I could remember which friend told me the story about her parents, the bottomline of which was, “Retirement communities are exactly like high school. You have all the cliques-- the popular kids, the jocks, the artists and the troublemakers. You have the established couples, the flirters and the singles, the secret sex. And the poor little people eating all alone.” This story stuck with me for a long time and forms the basis for Walden Spring, the lifecare community for people 55 and over that is the main setting for my mystery, Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody. 

Edith/Maddie: That’s such a great description, Barb. My Country Store Mysteries protagonist, Robbie Jordan, is from Santa Barbara, and she’s in her late twenties. For book seven, I wanted to get her out of South Lick, Indiana. My own fiftieth high school reunion was on the near horizon (scheduled for this September but they’re postponing it until next spring). I’d been thinking about the one girl who was mean to me for no reason and wondering if she’d be there. Then I thought about high school rivalries that might still be active only ten years later. I packed Robbie off for her tenth reunion in Santa Barbara, and included a mean girl, of course. The research trip was pretty nice, too.

Liz/Cate: I love that, Barb - and it’s so true! I remember the one high school reunion I went to and it was exactly the same as being in the cafeteria all those years prior. I developed my new series, The Full Moon Mysteries, out of my desire to be able to literally flick my wrist and change things I didn’t like in my life. (And some of those high school girls would’ve totally become toads.) My protag, Violet Mooney, is a witch who doesn’t know she’s a witch until her world falls apart and she gets an unexpected visit from her long-lost mother, who is one of the most powerful witches in her sphere. I’ve always loved witches and magic and the paranormal, and the inspiration for this series has always been about finding magic every day and using it to make the world better. 

Barb: That’s so funny how you two have completely different takes on reunions. I’ve never made it to any of mine. They’re always the same weekend as Malice, so I probably won’t for the foreseeable. I would so love to be able to flick my wrist and change things I don’t like in my life.

Edith: And I was really looking forward to going! We can certainly all use some magic everyday.

You know what we’re talking about right? Those little anecdotes or visuals that stick in your mind forever? Readers, tell us one of yours. Writers, have you ever used an anecdote or visual that stuck with you as an important element in a book?

All three of today's authors are giving away a copy of their new release--leave a comment to enter! (US only this time)