Since I wrote about book blogging earlier in response to some questions, Profile Interview Questions for WNFIN, I thought I’d tackle another book blogger topic for tonight’s Live Like Julia report. I’m test-driving Rule #6: To Be Happy, Work Hard from Julia Child Rules by Karen Karbo this week.
All book bloggers can relate to this odd experience: the type of post that allows us to call ourselves book bloggers, the book review, gets the least amount of attention. In twenty minutes, you can throw up a Sunday Salon or an It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? post. Within an hour or two, there will be several satisfying comments. In contrast, a book review will take a solid two hours to write. The result? Crickets. A night so quiet you can hear the huff of deer as they wander the forest.
Julia Child was no stranger to this phenomenon. Karen Karbo, in Julia Child Rules, tells this story in a section labeled, Throw yourself into it, even when no one cares but you. When Julia’s mayonnaise unexpectedly failed, she spent days working out the variables in the process so that she could make it perfectly every time (and explain how to the rest of us). She finally figured it out — warm the bowl.
Finally, triumphant, she recorded her discovery, and she mailed it to all her friends and family. Let’s pause to remember the effort this took in 1950: the typing, the procuring of the proper postage stamps, the mailing, the waiting for a response. The result: complete silence. p. 130
As I’ve written before, I had a practice of not finishing books about writing (Writing Books), but I decided to break that habit. As Karen Karbo points out in that section, women still spend much of our day pleasing others. Sometimes, like Julia, we need to satisfy our own curiosity and please ourselves. I want to read those writing books cover to cover to satisfy my curiosity and so that I can review them on my blog, whether anyone reads those posts or not.
