RSS feedThere is no Blogging 101
I avoid blogging about blogging. It strikes me as depressingly meta, an admission that you’re struggling for real content. Rules are made to be broken however, so permit me this minor crime of passion.
In one of my more creative waves, I made a promise to myself: to start writing. Not for profit or for publication, just for fun. The pleasure of manipulating words. The balance of brevity and meaning. As with so many bold plans, it never reached fruition, instead generating that nagging feeling of mild self-disappointment.
Then it struck me: I do write. I’m doing it right now. Praise be, I have been saved!
I’m fortunate enough to have many articulate, intelligent friends and like any good evangelist I suggest they should blog. Typically the response is tempted but wary: “but I don’t know what to write about…” I ought to point them to Blogging for Beginners, but I don’t. I don’t because I disagree with pretty much every piece of advice it gives:
“The chances are if you have identified a niche that you think is hot at the moment that someone else will have also.”
“What’s your message?”
“One of the common reasons that I see bloggers getting into trouble with their readers or other bloggers is that they change the way they approach their blogging midstream.”
Pardon my French, but fuck all that.
The whole reason blogging has taken off is because of its flexibility. It vehemently resists structure. It’s free of editorial constraints, free of bullshit and branding. You don’t know what to say? Rubbish. Say what you say to real people in real life. Screw “positioning” or “message consistency”, and just write for the love of expressing yourself, of creating, of having a voice.
Creativity is its own reward.
Categories: blogging, creativity, writing
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