We Need More Sherlock Holmes Blogs!

 Our greatest Sherlockian news source of the last four decades, Peter Blau, passed along a little tidbit this week with his congratulations. A site that promotes blogs for a fee that some of us are much too non-profit to check into had generated a list ranking Sherlock Holmes blogs.

Now, at first glance, it was quite a pleasant thing to see one's blog on such a list. On second glance, my competitive nature from growing up with siblings had its moment and went "Huzzah! I'm Number Two!" On third glance, I celebrated that my friend's blog made the list. And then, at last, I went, "Wait a minute ... is this all there is?"

So I started digging through Sherlockian blogs. Rob Nunn's "Interesting Though Elementary" is out there, probably needing "Sherlock Holmes" spelled out in its banner to attract the ranking site's attention or something. I knew Ross Foad did a video blog called "No Place Like Holmes." And David Marcum had a blog called "A Seventeen Step Program," which hadn't had new posts in a bit. And I went to Sherlockian.net to see what they had on their "Sharing" page.

Two societies, the Parallel Case of St. Louis and the Sherlock Holmes Society of France, had blogs listed. But that was it. Two societies out of how many? Of course, the Crew of the Barque Lone Star just puts their digital newsletter on their website, so that probably counts. I'm sure some others do as well. And I'm not going to get into Tumblr, which I guess is designed to blog upon? But I never quite got Tumblr, being rather older and a bit limited in my ways, so who knows?

What else were they missing? Give us a link in the comments if you know, to be sure. Rob Nunn already pointed out Shingle of Southsea and 221B Cooee were definitely missing.

I know regular blogging takes a certain purpose, mindset, or just enjoying writing random essays and tossing them into the ether. But one thing seems clear: Sherlockiana needs more blogs! Reading my own blog is not something I really want to do for enjoyment, and Dan Andriacco's new role as editor of The Baker Street Journal is probably going to decrease his postings. But even just one blog post a month can be a wonderful thing. Vincent Wright's Historical Sherlock brings a big smile to my face when that time of the month rolls around, and look! He made number six in the ranking! 

We need more Sherlockian blogs. Everybody is writing essays or stories for collections these days, and do you know what you can do with a blog? Collect them into a book that doesn't have anyone's essays but yours in it! (I would promote The 221B Con Decade: Notes From A 221B Con Fan here, but since it was a con exclusive, that would just be mean.) It's a great time to be a Sherlockian essayist, like that Sherlockian founding father, Christopher Morley.

And it's a great writing exercise to get in before breakfast, like I'm doing this morning.