[New blogs posted every weekend. For previous blogs please visit “blog archive” to the lower right of this screen. Click on the small black arrows for a drop down list.]
This is my official 100th blog. I might be cheating though since it’s a blog about a blog. But it is a blog so I’ll count it as 100. Many people thought this would be short-lived and not worth the effort. Au contraire. People fail at blogs by giving up on them too soon or posting too many (daily, hourly, etc.,) and wear themselves (and their readers) out. If a prospective blogger wants to be successful they must keep at it and be willing to change.
Special interest blogs are very popular (fly fishing, travel, pets) and some “diaries” have huge followings. Julie and Julia was a very interesting look at how a blog can explode in popularity. (It was also a fun movie.) I haven’t given up and I’ve tweaked what I’m doing to keep it going and here I am at the 100th blog. Wow.
But I didn’t start this devotion with any delusions I would be hitting the big time. I started it for a million reasons and monetary gain wasn’t one of them, though it’s nice when our efforts are valued and we receive monetary recognition for those efforts. Google’s eBlogger site pays bloggers on hits and hits on ads. I can control the ad content. It’s all about the numbers.
Driving people to the blog site is rewarding. Word of mouth is tremendous. I’m also an unabashed promoter of my site and hand out business cards with my site info like candy. Being invited to post on other websites is fabulous for the numbers. But I started it because I enjoy writing and love to research topics and it’s a great way to vent frustration but also a great way to share sadness, general societal angst, and also a little fun and absurdity.
Many blogs provide thoughts on a particular subject. Others function as more personal online diaries, travel journals, funny stories, and so on. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages and other media related to its topic. It’s good to mix it up and I try to provide some of my research on hot topics. Everything I write about is meticulously researched. I often receive thoughtful and funny emails from readers. In all my blogging I’ve only received one negative response to a posting. It was a Michael Jackson piece and the reader felt Michael didn’t deserve a blog because of his molestation charges. It was a nice response and not in the least bit offensive. Just a point of view. (July 2009 on the drop down list to the right of this blog.)
There are some negative jabs aimed at people who blog. Who do we think we are? We aren’t professional journalists. In fact, I’ve heard the same negatives about unknown folks who write books. Unless one went to Harvard some people don't think what the writer says is valid. Really? What baloney. I suspect there are people living low on the grid with stories to tell. I think everyone has a story to tell but not all can put it down on paper, or a keyboard. That’s a shame. I think if someone wants to tell their story they should write it and then have someone go over it to clean it up and see what happens. Technorati tracked more than 112,000,000 blogs a few years ago. It’s competitive and apparently lots of people love to write. Hooray!
I started my blog just because I love to write. And I love learning about new things (airport groping) and I like writing about things that bug me (politics) and about things I like (animals) and sometimes little “how to” pieces in areas I have a comfort level with (photo organization, embracing technology for seniors, etc.)
Things just pop into my head each week and I’m usually about 10 blogs ahead of myself. Sometimes I’m ready to post my weekly blog when a current event knocks it out of first place. Sometimes I work on several at one time then when Friday rolls around I have a hard time picking which one will be posted. I’m not an expert at anything but I like to share thoughts and ideas and ask questions and research anything and everything. Sometimes my research doesn’t provide anything of interest so I put that blog on the back burner. Sometimes the research is overwhelming. It’s all about learning and I love that.
I now have a large readership base. After 100 blogs I’ve had roughly 15,000 hits. It could be more but my hit counter developed an illness and died and I had to insert a new counter. I wrote down the hits weekly to learn what topics appealed to readers. I wrote a great piece on Micro Singularities that I knew would only appeal to those “in the know” and I was right. I received my favorite emails from the group who “got it.” Yet, I received the fewest hits on that blog because unless one knows what that means it would not draw readers. I didn’t care because it was a blog of pure love. (I’m not telling. It’s listed in my blog archive on my blog site for those interested. It’s a worthy read. October 2010.)
I’ve been blogging every week since March 2009 without a miss. It takes a while to develop a base of readers and it also takes readers/numbers to make any money. I wondered if I could manage a weekly blog but it turns out there’s always something to write about. I check the news each morning and it’s full of goofy things to write about. I also pay attention to what’s going on in the lives of people I know and sometimes emotional blogs come out of those observations. There’s no subject I won’t write about and sometimes I receive incredible suggestions.
One topic I’m grappling with is the horrendous impact pornography has had on humanity since ease of access via the Internet. It’s a disgusting topic so it’s taking me some time to work on it. It’s woven in with sex slave trafficking and child molestation and drugs and other criminal activity and isn’t as innocent as people would like to think. All of it is just so awful I can barely manage to do the research. It’s horrific on all levels. Anyone who thinks pornography is harmless and fine for adults is not paying attention to the horror some people are living in because of the wide acceptance of pornography.
If we accept it and pay for it sex slavery and mistreatment of the very young will continue to flourish. And there’s huge money being made on the backs of those slaves. Many are children. Another topic that took literally months to write about was the impact of reality TV on society. It’s a lot worse than people realize.
I’m also preparing a piece on competitive sports. I’m not a fan. So many reasons. It’s taking a while to put it together because a lot of people are fooled by the sports world and I’d like to paint the picture I see. Gambling, outrageous money paid to players, even more outrageous money paid to the professional gamblers, and outrageous money to owners, the financial burden and uncertainty foisted on the communities hosting the games, unsportsmanship behavior on so many levels, truth about how games are won and called, drugs, criminal behaviors, the lie we teach our children (“it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, Jimmy, it’s how you play the game that counts”), out of control children’s “sports,” and obnoxious pushy parents and so forth. It will be ugly.
Writing a blog to develop income is not the same as writing vacation journals or things the baby did in the last three months. Some of those do take off but most folks that post those are posting them to have fun with friends and family. I wanted to reach a larger audience and so I put considerable time and effort into promoting my blog. I maintain a separate website that is sort of napping right now but at times has been full of content and other times I don't tend to it but I put it through the web crawler often and have lots of hits. I’m on Twitter and Facebook and I have five emails I use, each for a different purpose, and each contains links to my sites. I also became an invited contract contributor with VibrantNation.com, which is primarily for women 50 plus. This opened a huge door for me and I’m also able to read lots of blogs on topics important to me on their website. Writing for fun and writing for profit are very different animals. I’m doing it for both reasons.
There are so many things to write about I have had to put myself on a writing diet. I just finished my second book and I’m finishing the editing and I’ve gone through a complete draft of the third book. All three (first one published in 2005) are part of a series. Didn’t start out that way but readers wanted more of the original family so I aim to please. (Jane is back!)
The fun part of all of this is that I made it to 100 blogs. I’m shocked I made it and shocked even more that I have so many topics lined up. And I have the opposite of writer’s block. I can’t stop. Once I get going it just goes and goes and goes. My family and friends will attest that my verbal skills are equally as flowing and I know they prefer the writing.
So thanks for being one of my readers. You must be if you’re reading this! Send me suggestions from time to time. Don't know when I’ll get to them but I will. I write every suggestion down but sometimes I’ve received duplicate ideas or ideas I’ve already posted. It’s okay. Send suggestions to me. Even if it’s a subject I don't like I’ll write about it. It’s particularly rewarding to me when I finish something that I don't like to write about. The blog on reality TV took months of painstaking research. I hated every moment of it. I loved the blog that came out of it though. It’s quite nasty. (August 2010)
I’m sharing all of this information to encourage those who have thought about starting a blog to do it! It costs nothing and could be rewarding. If nothing else, it’s fun to write about things we love and hate and to have our brain cells chugging away in search of new ideas. It’s great exercise for the brain and especially senior brains. Gotta keep those brains active and pushing hard till the bitter end.
Start a blog! See where it takes you and how you feel after a few posts. Next to the birth of my two children (and my adoration of dogs) writing is my favorite thing in the world. It’s like having a baby every week. But no stretch marks. Not on the outside anyway. Lots in the brain matter I hope.
[No part of this content may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author. Blog series began in March 2009.]
