You might have read Cake Wrecks before. Did you know that the person who started it, Jen, has a second blog where she writes about her various craft projects and other interests? It's pretty awesome. She had been on a two month sabbatical this summer and she writes about it here. Overall, there's a lot of interesting points, but a few things stuck out to me and I figured, what the heck. I might as well pretend like I'm a capable blogger, able to build upon other's observations.
Right?
1. She has two points on being a Reader of The Internet, and the one that sticks out to me is it's important to share your positive feedback.
A lot of times, if I read something I agree with, I don't say anything. I assume the author knows that she has written something great and that my thoughts would be akin to a small, yappy dog trying to get attention. And maybe that is true, but I don't mind being a small, yappy dog. Sometimes, even the smallest and yappiest of dogs cause other people to smile. And I certainly want to be someone who makes other people smile.
2. As a blogger, she emphasizes to write what you love.
I think that this advice can go to both bloggers and people reading blogs. Rather than worrying about what an author might want to read in a comment, maybe try commenting with what his story made you feel. (Obviously, trolls need not apply that advice.) But even if you disagreed with a piece, maybe try commenting about what you felt in respectful terms. Because, why not? Respectful conversation is great.
As a blogger, well, I already set my ship sailing on trying to write what I think people will like. My target audience is (theoretically), people who play video games, who are interested in babies, raising a family, going to school, writing, learning about why the Chrysler Sebring is an AWESOME vehicle and watching the HGTV channel. Oh, and this is within the small group of people who will read a blog that routinely presents massive amounts of words and next to no pictures, despite my best efforts. Also my target audience is my friends and family. They're pretty awesome.
I've been blogging semi-regularly for a couple years now. I know I'm not going to break into an illustrious blogging career. But I enjoy hammering at my keyboard until the words in my brain are on a computer screen in front of me.
3. It's like she's read my brain.
Seriously. She writes about taking a half hour to write an email or an hour to write a twitter post, because she's afraid she will accidentally say something that will be taken the wrong way. I can't count how many times I've started to write a post, or a comment, or whatever, and taken ten minutes to write, re-write, re-write, and then convince myself I can't say what I want to say and that it was a waste of time to think anyone would want to read it and if they did read it, they'd just realize that maybe I'm not that intelligent, so I should probably avoid saying anything and then I delete it. Repeat multiple times, as needed.
But if it isn't obvious, I have made my new blogging goal to be honest with myself and see how that goes. I'm a reasonably ok person, after all. Maybe I'll rename this site to "Reasonably Ok."
Eh, I don't have time for a new banner. Besides, I'm still hilarious.
Happy writing everyone!
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