Laura’s To Do List:

1.       Create blog.  (Check!)

2.       Discipline yourself to update the blog regularly.  (Yea, yea, I’m working on it…)

3.       Make your blog updates interesting enough so that people want to check in regularly.

4.       Find out how to promote blogs so that people outside of my immediate circle gain interest in me and my writing.

5.       Move to Vancouver and get a job writing scripts for the TV show Supernatural

6.       Take over world.

(Okay, so the last two items have nothing to do with my blog, but a girl’s got to have goals, right?)

In speaking with the literary manager who inspired this blog in the first place, she said something very interesting…  (Well, she said a lot of interesting things, but this one particularly sticks with me as I move on to item #3 on my list and try to develop some kind of structure around my blog.)  She suggested that I find a gap in the existing literary market – one that I have the skills to fill – and that I fill it.  I should be the “go to” person for a particular type of fiction.  You want fabulous horror, go see Steven King.  If you want a western theme, pick up Larry McMurtry.  If you want (fill in blank here), then grab Laura Kilmartin’s latest book.  (And before you ask – no.  I don’t know how that blank should be filled in yet.)

I suppose that same theory can work on some level with blogging.  Find out what kind of blogs are popular, find a gap in those that are out there and fill it.  The only problem I can see with that plan is that until about a week ago I knew nothing about blogs at all.  I think the better plan would be for me to identify my skills and then look for a way to shoehorn those skills into the current blogging landscape.

Luckily the first part of that plan is easy.  The skill I have that would be most conducive to a blog is without question my freakish savant knowledge of pop culture.   I was at a writing seminar yesterday (more on that tomorrow!) and someone mentioned a house of cards.  My mind immediately went to Jan Brady’s charm bracelet, Tiger, and a television set instead of a sewing machine.  We then talked about something being “humdrum” and I did an impressive “Mork from Ork” impression in my head as I recalled his attempted kidnap of Richie Cunningham.

(And if neither of those references mean anything to you, I can only kindly suggest that perhaps my blog is not the place for you…)

So, then, my assignment (should I chose to accept it) is to make this blog interesting through a use of television and other pop culture trivia.  How will I choose to use my amazing talent for good instead of evil?  Well, that question is a little harder. 

Stay tuned.