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Ok. So let's say you're new to blogging. Or let's say you're not, but you're starting a new blog. Or... you've been blogging for a long time and you're at the point where you're asking yourself existential blogging questions (and the questions are many, you can skip over them if you want to get to the point):
• What is this blog about?
• What is blog-worthy?
• Do I have talk about things that happened today or very recently?
• Is it okay to talk about stuff that happened last month? Last year? Twenty years ago?
• Can I go into deep questions and research?
• Can it be just fluff? Like my day to day stuff and boring details about my life and my friends?
• Does it have to be breaking news/journalistic kind of writing?
• Do I have to be a good writer?
• Does the writing matter?
• Can I use it to try different writing styles?
• Can I just write whatever pops in my head, in a stream of consciousness mode?
• Does every post have to have a photo or a visuals?
• Can some, or every post be just words?
• Can some, or every post be just visuals?
• Do I have to find a niche for my blog?
• Do I have to decide any of these things?
There are probably as many questions as there are people and blogs out there. But the point is, do you think a blog needs to adhere to a certain format and stick to it? And if so (or if not) why?
i'm a stream of consciousness writer. whatever i think about flows to my hand which types the words. i'm not a good writer. i'm not sure that, what i write about is interesting. but, it's my blog. mine. and, i figure, the best i can do is make it about who and what i am. which, i think, is what i've been doing. i have barely, if any, pics. it's all me. take me or leave me...
take care!
I'm fairly sure I'm not a great writer, but I use my blog as an impetus to write every day. I'd say "sure, the writing matters," but it's not like anyone's trying to win the Booker Prize for blogging.
In answer to both melissa and kperfetto, I get the impression that most, if not all people's blogs are extensions of who they are. For example melissa, I do mostly stream of consciousness writing too, but with the Smiler blog, I wanted to explore different approaches to writing, I'm very visual too, so I have a lot of visuals there and I keep a separate blog as my journal with just whatever nonsense is in my head when I sit down to write. I like your attitude: "take it or leave it" and "I'm not a great writer but I do it anyway because I'm not trying to get an award" Blogging should be fun right?
absolutely! it should be fun. i'm a visual person, too. unfortunately, i am not technologically advanced and, i can't figure out anything. these newfangled thingamabobs!
They're usually pretty simple to figure out and if you're in doubt you can always find a forum where someone will be able to help you with tech issues. Look it up, you can just Google your query. it's worth it.
Yes. "Why do I blog" comes up a lot for me too. But I actually did a post about that on my blog called The thing about the blogging thing which I read again every time I start to ask myself that question. It's kind of like "Blogger's Manifesto" Feel free to have a look at it if you like... You might want to come up with your own.
Good questions. I'll start up with "Do I have to decide any of these things?" My cop-out answer--no. At the end of the day, your blog is your own; it's how you've decided to represent yourself. Yes, we all like to be read (and commented on!), but if at the end of the day it's not a style you're comfortable with or just don't like, it makes blogging a chore, not a hobby. Pegging yourself into one style seems restrictive; I prefer to let the style unfold through exploration. I know in the 5+ years I've been at this, my style's changed (for the better, I hope).
My default format is text-only, about whatever crosses my keyboard. Some days it'll be an interesting news story (my "WTF" tag has come in quite useful for those ;)), sometimes I write about experiences from the crazy world of teaching freshman composition, and on rare occasion, I just play with words for my own amusement (note to self: do that more often). I'm not as personal as some bloggers, but that's preference. Lately, I'm branching out into a bit of photography, which is a new thing.
I don't really want to be a niche blogger; too many things interest me. If I fell into one niche, it might be a loose fit with the academic blogger community, but I'm reluctant to let academia become my identity.
At the end of the day, I blog because I like to write and have things to say. I realize this adds nothing to my uniqueness. But that won't stop me from utilizing a not-so-subtle bit of self-promotion, yes?
The fact that you are asking yourself these questions is much more important than the specific answers to them. It's best to do what works for you. While a structured or semi-structured approach works well for a lot of bloggers, so does a completely unstructured approach.
Everything from any time is blog-worthy if you make it so ;) Some of your readers may question it if you do something that's uncharacteristic for you, but experimentation is fun, so don't worry too much about staying on topic in your entries (unless you happen think it's important).
You don't have to be a good writer to start a blog, but you will almost certainly be a better writer for writing in one (or more than one, in your case) :) . I hope every post doesn't have to have photos or visuals, because most of mine don't! My blog is niche, but many (most?) of the other ones I've seen are much more general; "niche" is something of a relative term in the blogosphere, and you don't have to be in one.
You don't have to decide about any of these things if you don't want to, but if deciding on them helps you, then by all means do so. The main thing is to have fun posting stuff that makes you and other people happier,
There's nothing wrong with self-promotion. I think one of the things that most bloggers have in common is a need to communicate, to have a voice. Some like to talk loudly and others like to barely whisper. But we all have a pressing need to reach out in some way (I think) or we wouldn't be doing it in the first place.
The only reason someone would take on a style that isn't their own (that I can see) would be because they're trying to make a commercial venture out of it and they buy into the whole "give the people what they want" idea. Other than that, the only reason I could see for not throwing everything into the same blog is that if you are trying to build up a readership for any reason, people might find it confusing if you keep changing your approach, but then again it could also be part of the appeal. Who knows?
Tiv: better late than never. I think that for many of us, the question about disclosure is one that we're constantly revisiting over time. I guess there are a lot of factors at play and ultimately it's an entirely personal decision, but that's one of the great things about the blogosphere: you can choose to be as transparent or as private as you want, and both are equally acceptable.
I think that how much you should adhere to certain formats depends very much on what your aims are for your blog as well as your topic. The extent to which you need to analyze and plan is proportionate to the ambitions you have e.g Are you happy with a smallish close readership, or aiming for a huge amount of visitors? Are you trying to reach a specific audience, want to be part of a particular group? Is your aim to teach or impart knowledge or information on a particular subject?
The more specific your aims the more you need to plan what you write what sort of format you are going to take and how we promote our blogs. You always need to temper this with the amount of enjoyment you are getting out of it though. If we are no longer enjoying what we are doing because it is becoming a chore, then maybe we should then review our aims - what we want is not necessarily what we need. The quality of our writing is bound to suffer if we are forcing ourselves to write in a way that is not natural to us. Then again we may just need a bit of a break or to blog less frequently for a while until motivation returns.
If you aim is writing for fun and you are having fun doing it I would say just go for it and carry on using your 'format', which could be no format at all. There are so many blogs telling us that we should be doing this that and the other. Keep in mind that pro-blogger type help blogs are usually aimed at a very small proportion of bloggers - those whose aim is to either make money, get to the front page of digg and develop a massive readership. Most of us just do it to enjoy and to develop a satisfying community of readers to interact with.
I should imaging quite a few people are questioning their blogging having to try to keep up with NaBloPoMo daily posting :-)
I was persuaded that in my move to Wordpress on my own domain, I should start again. I can still see the reasoning behind it but I have not got all my readers back, am not getting the same amount of visitors and although pagerank is not the be all and end all, the fact that I don't have one at all anymore does bother me a bit. Oh well having to make an effort to get some content into the new blog has meant that I have easily been keeping up with MaBloPoMo so the timing was good at least. I have also committed myself to writing about the move across to my own domain. All this has made me sit back and think about my own aims because with the move motivation has dropped a little.
Since I write three professional, topic-focused blogs, my personal blog is a release valve for all the stuff I have left when I've published 1500 to 2000 words or so, but am not feeling done. I'm all over the place on Paradise Preoccupied, and I know it. I also know that this frustrates some readers who are deeply interested in adoption, for example, but could care less about island life ... both hot topics with me.
I'm thinking about starting another blog in January, one with a point that I will aim for as I write there in hopes of taking some of my advocacy to greater heights. We'll see about that.
Here are links to my pro blogs, if anyone is interested:
