What is a blog?

For Spike Gillespie, it is an odyssey that is her life.*

For Liz Scanlon, it is an entwining of her life, her poetry, her books.

For Brian Yansky, it is his thinking about the craft of writing.

For Carmen Oliver, it is an exploration into the craft of picture books.

For Cynthia Leitich Smith, it is the world of children’s literature and her embrace of it.

For Chris Barton, it is news and notifications about his career as a children’s book author.

For Don Tate, it follows his ups and downs (rants and raves) as an illustrator of children’s books.

I could go on. These are just a few of the Austin bloggers I follow and just a small portion of the bloggers that I read worldwide.

So what pray tell is a blog? A diary? A news bulletin? A teaching spot? It is all those things. The challenge I think is to find your voice among all those voices. Not your brand. Your voice. The one that is uniquely yours among all the voices out there blogging and speaking and musing. The one that your audience will surf to on a Monday wondering what Lindsey has to say today.

My todays have been sparse. Partly it’s because I have been immersed in the MFA program at VCFA. Partly it’s because I been reading blogs and thinking, “Hmm, what is a blog? What is my blog?”

Check back in and see how my blog odyssey develops.

Oh, and if you’d like to share your own blog odyssey or the site of a unique blog and why you read it, please do.

*These are my summaries of their websites.