Ten Questions with Tiffany of RockStories

1. Describe your blog in five sentences or less.
Brushing away the myths that keep people from pursuing writing, whether it be the occasional freelance short story or a career in writing—or at least, that’s the primary objective. Sometimes I can’t help wandering off into life observations, book recommendations, and even a little bit of personal nostalgia. But the focus, and the purpose, is to remind all writers out there that for every established writing or agent or publisher out there telling them why they can’t, there’s at least one successful author who has proved them wrong.

2. Link us to one post from your blog that best defines who you are.
Writing is Easy

3. What sets you apart from other bloggers?
I had some very ambitious life goals and I’d achieved them all by the time I was in my mid-thirties, which means that I have nothing to prove and something to share.

4. When and how did you first discover blogging?
I think I was blogging on paper in the early eighties, though there was no forum for it then and I just called it “ramblings”.

5. What is your biggest pet peeve related to blogging or the internet?
Alleged blogs that are really just there to sell something or, worse, host advertising.

6. Name one plugin, blogging widget, or service that you can’t live without.
It would have been the Firefox plug-in that aggregates links to your blogs, but lately that’s been showing me more than 900 million results no matter what site I’m on, so its value has diminished somewhat.

7. If you could choose anyone, living or dead, to write a guest post for your blog,who would it be and why?
Ernest Hemingway, because I think that as a ground-breaking author in his time he’d have the kind of advice I want to share with my readers—advice about following your talent rather than someone else’s rules. And, because he was a journalist, I think he’d easily be able to write to this medium.

8. How has blogging made you a better person?
I don’t think so, but I like to think it’s allowed me to be a better person to a wider range of people.

9. What are your tips for becoming a better blogger?
Remember that blogging is about blogging, not about networking or garnering links or selling ad space or upping click-through rates or any of that. All of that has its place, in varying degrees, depending upon your goals, but whatever your ultimate goal it’s best served by giving readers something worth visiting for.

10. Name one great blog that you read on a regular basis. What makes it unique?
I read a lot of great blogs, but the only one that I absolutely read every day is the So, the thing is…blog. It’s a great mix of laughter and life lessons, and an especially good fit for me because its author is a writer, mother, blogger, humanitarian who sees the world through eyes very like my own…except that she’s much more prone to giving people the benefit of the doubt!

Categories: Ten Questions, Writing & Books