Hello World

I just got home from the seventh annual San Francisco Writer's Conference (with plenty to type about ... but this first post will be a short one).

One of the conference's many take-aways was that if you want to get read you have to develop an on-line presence. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it before. I've seen friends like recently-republished novelist Leslie Larson (Breaking out of Bedlam) prodded by a publicist to blog. Another author friend, Kate Raphael, has just begun serializing the first novel in her mystery series, Murder Under the Bridge, in an eponymous Wordpress blog. A friend, colleague, and recently self-published author Quinn Dombrowski, seems to be blogging in several places at once simultaneously, especially about her book, Crescat Graffiti. My brother, David, just self-published his first book (Mastering Your Sales Process) and blogs about it. But somehow, this weekend was my tipping point. So. Here I am...

Why "One Finger Typing"? I picked that name a little over a year ago, when I almost decided to start blogging but didn't. It's the obvious reference -- what's the sound of one hand clapping? -- and I mean it as a reminder to myself. If I'm blogging, I'm not writing fiction ... even if I'm thinking about it ... so the title is a warning that too much time spent here is leaving the "real work" idling.

(P.S. It would be a grave strategic error to post on Valentine's Day, refer to the blogs of three terrific women and a brother, and leave out one's own sweetheart ... Matthew blogs too.)