The Writer's Virtual Watercooler

(tap, tap, tap) "Hello? Is this thing on?"

That old saw refers, of course, to the performer sweating on stage, tapping the microphone to see if the audience can hear him . . . perhaps in the wake of a joke that has fallen flat, or a rousing speech he hoped would inspire murmurs of agreement. Instead there is dead silence--the proverbial chirping of crickets. Surely they didn't hear him, or they would have responded! (tap, tap, tap) "Is this thing on?"

In some ways, blogging is like performing on stage. You send something out to the universe, hoping it won't come back void. While some bloggers may write purely to express themselves, not especially caring to hear what others think about what they've written, we at Writing North Idaho care deeply about what the Inland Northwest literary community is thinking and doing.

One of our dreams for Writing North Idaho is that it will be a place for writers, readers, and others who love the written and spoken word to come together and share thoughts, information, ideas, opinions, and inspiration. We'd like to be a gathering place, a virtual watercooler for wordsmiths. To do that, we need to hear from you!

Now that we've gotten our sea legs at this whole blogging thing, we'd like to increase blog traffic and activity and get the conversation going. While researching ways to do this, I've learned a few interesting tidbits. Most of them are pure common sense, like paying attention to what we put in headers, linking to other blogs, joining a blog ring, and adding a blog roll to the homepage, all things to consider as we move forward.

But we also want to hear from you, dear reader. Specifically:

*What would you like to see more of (and less of) on Writing North Idaho?

*What would make the blog most useful and fun for you?

*What inspires you to comment on a blog (any blog, not just WNI)?

*What might prevent you from posting a comment? (One potential commenter mentioned being intimidated at the idea of posting on a blog for writers, worried that we're hovering here with eagle eyes, ready to swoop down and pounce on every grammar and spelling mistake. Believe me, this is not Mrs. Grundy's English 101 class! We're eager for your thoughts and ideas, not precisely placed past-perfect participles--if such a thing even exists!)

*Finally, if you are a blogger yourself, what tactics have worked for you, in terms of increasing traffic and getting comments on your blog?

As always, we're eager to hear from you!