Interview with CHLOE THURLOW, novelist and blogger

www.ChloeThurlow.com

by Rahul Miglani

http://www.mymagicjobs.com/

1.Can you tell us a little about yourself? your blog , and your aspirations and your hobbies .

At Cambridge I came under the hand of a strict tutor who seduced my mind. After giving me books by Anais Nin, the Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille, he persuaded me to write an erotic short story, which was published in a literary magazine. Thus, the tiller on my boat was set and I have sailed far and wide across the seas of erotica ever since.

2.How you first got involved in with blogging , are you an imaginative person?

My brother, who is always rude to me, told me that I must blog as well as write. Naturally, he was right. He broadens the imagination by taking you off across new tangents and my blog has started to get many hits every day.

3.What do you find most challenging about blogging about your topic?

Being totally original. If something sounds familiar – if you think: that's good enough. It is a sign: it is not good enough. You must work harder.

4.Tell me about some of the people you have met while working on your blog?

The person I regularly meet is Bradley, my web guy. He is 22 years old, an internet genius and he would like to exchange his work for a date, which is not going to happen.

5.How would (someone) describe your blogging style?

Lyrical, poetic, elegiac – I try to write as if each word is a precious drop of blood, or a tear to be saved in a glass phial.

6.       What do you do when you are not working on your blog?

I write my novels. I am living in Spain at present house-sitting. Working other than with my pen doesn't suit me.

7 .Where do you see yourself blogging wise in the next 6 months, and 5 years down the road?

I would like to have a following as big as Mahatma Gandhi when he went on his first salt march and I would like to thrill my readers with exquisite prose. In 5 years, I would like to be doing what I am doing today. Happiness is finding your path and sticking to it.

8.What networking do you do that you feel helps your blogging business?

I network through FaceBook and Twitter, also Pinterest, where I post photographs, some of me, though I don't say which.

9.How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.

I struggle too and mix original thought with excerpts from my novels as well as tips from my writing guide, "The Fifty Shades of Grey Phenomena."

10.What's your strategy with your blog in general?

To keep on keeping on.

11.Any specific tips you have for newbee bloggers who want to make it in the blogosphere?

Work. Be original. Never give up.

12.What would you prioritize? Content? SEO? Traffic? Readers?

No. That is too much thinking and the best writing comes from the heart.

13.What's the best thing a blogger can give to his readers?

A glimpse of his or her world, your passions, intuitions, your joys as well as your fears.

14.A lot of people are interested in blogging for the money earning potential. What are some tips for people interesting in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?

I have absolutely no idea. I blog as part of a long term career and want people to enjoy my writing and read my books,. If money comes, it comes. I don't think about it.

15.What motivates you most in life?

This is virtually impossible to answer. I am motivated by a beautifully constructed sentence; moonlight on the sea; being a passenger in a car driving through the countryside, the light flickering over the windscreen; the swallows flying in patterns over the village where I am living in Spain as the sun goes down.

16.What has been your strategy for creating visibility to yourself and your blog?

I work with little strategy and a belief in destiny. I write, I network a bit on FaceBook and hope people enjoy my work and recommend it. I love it when people comment on my blog, this is inspiration for me.

17.Five adjectives that describe you.

Fastidious, in work, careless in life; moody, but potentially happy;  discontented with nothing to be discontented about; beautiful on good days,  a mere shadow on others.

18.What book would you say has made the biggest impact  good or bad on you?

"A Spy in the House of Love," by Anais Nin, opened my mind to the potential of writing literary erotica and "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," by Milan Kundera, showed me how every word must carry its own weight in a piece of prose and that when you start writing a new book you should try to write a masterpiece.

19.Do you get easily provoked by positive/negative comments ??

I used top hate negative comments on my blog and in reviews of my books, but have come to see that, if you hold yourself up as an artist, a writer, this is a part you must come to terms with. I try to see a little positive in the most negative comment. At least the writer has been sufficiently moved to comment.

20.Are you a judgmental person . Do you prefer to take sides instead of standing neutral?

I try to be neutral, it is the writer's role, but have been moved politically since the world financial crisis and feel the urge to take a more active part in putting wrongs to right. I believe we have come to the end of democratic politics as we have known it for the last 100 years and need a new system in which to care for all people –the poor, as well as the rich and fortunate. 

21.Your Views on Contests and increasing plagiarism ?

Plagiarism has been with us since time began and competitions I find rather silly because how to you judge one piece of writing against another. I avoid competitions and avoid plagiarism, too.

22.Words for me and my blog ?

The world is awash in words. Anyone can set up a blog and self-publish a book. Texts and advertising fall upon us like monsoon rains. With the floodtide of news bites, jingles and promos, the value of the word is diminished and writers, like ancient priests, are obliged to maintain a purity, a simplicity. Good writing is easy reading. Bad writing shouts at you from the page.   

Find Chloe Thurlow at www.chloethurlow.com

Chloe books at Amazon

Follow Chloe on Twitter - @ChloeThurlow1

Words from the Interviewer : Rahul Miglani : I am a Fan , I have nothing else to say.