Re author blogs/journals and whatnot, there are authors who create a dialogue with fans and some kind of a connection, but with only a few exceptions that I can name, the blogs I've read tend to be dominated by the author expressing his/her statements about writing, and the fans expressing gratitude. Okay, I snark and I exaggerate, but still: the most frequent dynamic I see/read is that of the author saying, "this is how I got here," and the fans saying, "oh, okay, thank you for explaining that." There are some authors who do a bit of a jog sideways to that, where they post snippets of works in progress, but I can name on one hand the authors who also encourage readers to do the same as well.
(Oddly, now that I think of it, the three authors I know who do that are also all teachers of some kind. Hmmmm. Must be a teacher thing.)
As for the one-sided-ness of those connections... oh, there ain't nothing that screams ex cathedra quite like an author-blogger who either doesn't reply to comments left on the blog, or simply has all comments turned off. I don't think you can get much more "these are my words, YOUR job is just to ABSORB" than that.
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Date: 5 Jun 2010 04:13 am (UTC)(Oddly, now that I think of it, the three authors I know who do that are also all teachers of some kind. Hmmmm. Must be a teacher thing.)
As for the one-sided-ness of those connections... oh, there ain't nothing that screams ex cathedra quite like an author-blogger who either doesn't reply to comments left on the blog, or simply has all comments turned off. I don't think you can get much more "these are my words, YOUR job is just to ABSORB" than that.