My first impressions of “Spinning” were good. Typepad blogs tend to be pretty well put together as a rule and this one is no exception. There is a title bar with detailed description of the blog (which is basically about writing) and some nice graphics. An “About Me” page reveals more on the writing theme, though it was not as in depth or informative as maybe it could have been. Browsing the two sidebars, I found the usual suspects – many links to other sites and blogs (mostly literature based), a webring and archives of various descriptions. The overall look of the site is pretty tasteful and there are a few graphics too which enhance things still further.
The weblog itself has only been going since October 2003 but there is more than enough content here to keep readers busy for sometime. Being a writer, the weblog is updated daily, often more than once. So what is written about exactly in this weblog? Well after reading through the archives for some time, I found that the key to accessing the content really lies in the different categories. The blog is helpful in this respect because each post title specifies which category it belongs to. Not all the category titles are clear at first, but I soon discovered that “Edgar and I” for example refers to the author’s relationship with Edgar Allen Poe, who she considers to be a major influence, “Reality?” is fairly obviously the day- to- day life stuff and so on.
Unfortunately I found the writing itself to be fairly inaccessible though, even once I started paying attention to the categories. Now I hold my hands up at this point and say that it may well have been me that was the problem here- I will be interested to see what the other reviewers have to say about it. The thing is, writing, literature, education and blogging (the main themes of the site) are all things which usually interest me, but somehow I couldn’t penetrate the wordy style of the author and found the posts a bit dry. This detailed and analytical style of prose is (I’m sure) very good practice for “proper” writing, but I think a more chatty, informal style might be more appropriate for a weblog and make it more accessible.
Overall then, this weblog would (I would think) appeal to other writers as there are loads of tips here about how to write and what to write, with some good examples of work by the author. My inability to connect with the writing style meant I found it a hard site to penetrate though, which is a shame.Spinning