Writers and their Blogs…

I was on Twitter this evening participating in #WIPchat and one of the questions was, do you blog and why is blogging important in building an author’s platform? One of the other participants said that she did not blog because she didn’t have any writing tips to share and that the advice blogs she’d read for writers cautioned against blogging about random things.

That got me thinking. I hate blogs where all they write about it.. well.. writing. If I wanted to read about writing all the time, I’d go looking for specific advice on writing.  I know that hate is a strong word, but I legitimately find them boring. So I started thinking about the types of blogs I do enjoy. The blogs I enjoy most are the ones where I get to know the author. I have several authors I adore. I follow them on Twitter and read their websites. Why? Because I get to know a little more about them and what they love. Not how they write.

Writing blogs (the ones that focus on actual writing tips) have their uses. I use them when I’m feeling stuck or when I want to try something new. I use them when I feel like learning more about my craft (which is often… but I set aside time to do that). When I go looking at an author’s blog, I’d prefer to catch glimpses of what they like, what they’ve been doing in their non-writing time, or snippets of life. Did they go to the grocery store and have an amusing conversation with the bag boy? Fun! Did they see a movie they really loved and wanted to share with the world? Yay! I love movie reviews. I’d get tired of hearing Stephen King just write about writing. He wrote a book for that. I love that Maggie Steifvater tweets about randomness. These are the things I love to see from blog posts as well.

So what about ya’ll? Do you agree with the ‘experts’ that writers should blog about writing? Or do you prefer to see a varied rambling of topics? If I’m wrong, tell me that! I’d love to hear the opposing viewpoint.