12 Blogs of 2014: Whatever

Most of the blog posts I read are linked to from Twitter. In fact, most of what I read from the Internet is linked to from one of the Twitter accounts I follow. I started following John Scalzi’s Twitter feed a few years ago when I noticed how often he was interacting with…say it with me, everyone, MAUREEN JOHNSON! Of course, the queen of Twitter has excellent taste and I often find myself following the people she interacts with most, just to keep up with the jokes if not the other excellent things they post. John Scalzi ended up being one of the great ones. Often hilarious, usually on point, his feed is an excellent mix of entertainment, information and opinion, pictures of cats, and the rare promotional tweet just to remind you he is actually an author. His blog, Whatever, is much the same, but in longer format.

Scalzi, the author of ten novels, multiple novellas, short stories, and non-fiction books, is probably best known for the Hugo Award winning Red Shirts. He is also the past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s America. Qualifications aside, he is basically a very polished writer on a diverse variety of topics.

Some reasons to read his blog:

• Excellent Cat Pictures (Including the one where he taped bacon to this lovely kitty.)

• Excellent, good humored, take downs of Internet trolls
• Detailed explanations of ‘weird stuff’ in the publishing world and how it works.
• His Big Idea posts where he introduces his reader to authors they may not have heard of and then lets them talk about their own work. (Just go on the blog and search for ‘big idea’.)
• His Annual Holiday Shopping Guide, which takes multiple days, allowing people to highlight their own and other people’s work in the comments. It also includes a day where you can promote your favorite charity.
• And, what is probably dearest to my librarian heart, an ongoing archive of the development of his very bright, extremely well adjusted, and yet somehow completely normal daughter. As well as the father daughter relationship they have. This is one of my favorite examples.

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