My associate and I are have been doing a lot of reading about blogging, SEO tactics, and social media, we’re in the throes of launching a new business that will help published authors generate more traffic to their websites, and lead to sales. As we learn more and more we’re also applying more of these tactics to our own sites to see what works and what doesn’t.

The key element to have readers keep coming back to your blog or website is to keep the content interesting, but what might be fun for you doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be page turner or a click through for your audience. I discovered this last month when I decided to run a special month-long series on the Spanish Civil War on Alvah’s Books.  So the question is do I write for my audience to keep them coming back and review books I know they’ll like or review what’s interesting to me?

The same question applies for writing a novel. Julius has a lot to do with the politics of the left,  the Depression, the Abraham Linclon Brigades, the Spanish Civil War, the Rosenbergs, and the blacklist–topics I find fascinating. However, a few people who have read the manuscript have commented that I need to make the story more commercial for it to sell.  But does commercial value equal an interesting story? Does it motivate a writer to create a piece that will resonate with both him and his audience? I don’t know.  I can only speak for myself, but I’ll keep on writing and researching what interests  me–commercial value or not.

For almost three years, I’ve been working on a novel that I’ve titled Julius. It started with the NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month ) challenge to complete a 50,000 word draft in one month. After I completed the task, I saw that the silly and spoofy story I had imagined had become something much more substantial.  Now, two and one-half years after the fact, I’m still researching, rewriting and revising. It’s an endless process.

How did  the story begin and what is it today? For starters, it all had to with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a car drive through the town of Ossining and my father’s comment about prison towns and the electric chair.

How did the novel change? Here’s an example of one sentence I wrote in the very first draft:

Too bad it’s not 1936, we could have run off to Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, fight the fascists along with Alvah Bessie and George Orwell and feel like we accomplished something worthwhile.

What was a passing mention of Alvah Bessie, the Abraham Lincoln Brigades, and the Spanish Civil War became a quest to know everything about the war, Bessie and ALBA (Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archive), and the CPUSA, and with that, the research became an all-consuming obsession.

When do you stop researching and start writing? For me, they go hand-in-hand. I may find something and discover it might be a good fit–so in it goes. Does it make the final cut? Maybe, maybe not. Research,like revisions, can be an endless task. If you’re like me, a notorious procrastinator, they can be impediments to writing and finishing your novel.

And on that note, it’s time to do some writing. . . .