BloggingTips for You-Part 01
Edited by: Dr. Hari Muraleedharan
The popularity of blogging amazes and inspires me. Here are millions of people who’ve found a format that makes them eager to publish. For many bloggers, their sites are the first place they’ve voluntarily written or produced a project in their lives. This is huge! It’s a Renaissance in personal expression! It’s an astonishing historical record! It’s the voice of an entire people! It’s an awesome way to K.I.T.!
So why aren’t English teachers high-fiving each other in the streets?
Well, let’s examine that first post more closely:
Hello, world!
Okay. And the second?
I had a cheese sandwich today. It was delicious.
Mmm hmm.... The third?
I don’t know what to write about.
I see.
So my theory is this. Like any endeavor, you make a choice when you start a blog. You either put in some effort to make something engaging and creative that builds community, or you toss a “me too” onto the growing pile of repetitive, navel-gazing content. So how do you avoid me-too syndrome? Well, the answer is conveniently located right here in your hands. No One Cares What You Had for Lunch gives you the inspiration you need to create posts that keep visitors coming back. Use the hundred suggestions to stock your blog with fresh content and help make blogging fun again. Your site will rock so hard that you will gaze upon your typing fingers in wonder.
Fess Up
Writing gives you time to consider how to present yourself. Online, you can be smarter, wittier, and kinder. Alternately, you can be a mind numbing bore. This sometimes happens because your audience (however small you think it may be) gives you stage fright. You worry that certain things could be misconstrued, so you’re tempted to water things down. You hone, delete, and reshape until you’ve sucked all the juice from your posts.
All readers need an occasional dose of schadenfreude, so fess up. How do you fail? Do you consistently kill plants? Keep getting fired? Always take the last cookie? That’s the stuff, friends. To err is human, but to share? Divine.
Give Us Something......
Wish containers I love putting wishes, lists, worries, and things I’d like to manifest in a cigar box. Some call it a “God box.” I call it the pneumatic tube (like the old fashioned bank deposit containers). [My friend] Sasha made me a portable tube in the form of a hand-bound book. She painted on several pages, and glued tiny envelopes inside to place wishes. This book is my portable wish container for the tenderest things.
Trib ute books The best gift I have ever given was a book that I made for my mom for Mother’s Day. I asked each of our family members and several of her old friends to answer three important questions:
1. How did you meet my mom?
2. Choose one word to describe her?
3. What do you love most about her?
What I got back were incredible stories (things I had never known about my mom), gorgeous old photographs, and poignant declarations of love from family and friends. It was truly one of those presents that were a gift not only to her, but to everyone who contributed to it.
Exploit the youth.
Turn away from your monitor, and hunker down with the Legos. Why be a parent—or a cousin, or an aunt, or an uncle—if not to exploit children for blog content? Kids are hilarious and surprisingly insightful. A quick conversation with a five-year-old will yield a dozen more amusing moments than you could call to mind by banging your head against the keyboard. Witness this conversation with my then three-year-old nephew,Trevor:
Me: What do pigs say?
Trevor: …ahh…. Oink! Oink!
Me: What do dogs say?
Trevor: Bark! Bark!
Me: What do elephants say?
Trevor: …aaah…. Prrrrrbt!
Me: What do Trevors say?
Trevor: PLEASE!
Be a sage.
People love to tell you what to do with your life. You’re graduating, getting married, having a kid—whatever it is, they have some advice. Do you know a great advice giver, or better yet, someone who’s prone to making inappropriate suggestions? Think through all the counsel you’ve gotten over the years. What opinions have people offered that stuck with you, whether they turned out to be on the money or completely nuts? If you’d rather be the one to tell other people what to do, offer readers your hard-learned lessons—satirical or solemn.
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Part 01 End.......Thanks to Margaret Mason Copyright @ MydeaMedia
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