As a writer, there always comes a time where you ask yourself why you are doing what you’re doing. Why do I sit here - or in my case, lie on my bed - and type words to publish on the Internet? Some think it’s crazy; others, a waste of time.

I came across a paragraph from John that expresses my feelings perfectly:

I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.

This long weekend - big happy birthday wishes go out to Queen Victoria by the way - I decided to do just that. I read a blog. No, not a blog post. An entire blog. From start to finish. From post number one to post two hundred sixty eight. I poured over the pages and pages of my favourite blog for hours on end.

And you know what? I really enjoyed it.

Enjoyed it more than spending the night watching TV. Enjoyed it more than coding and tweaking my website. Heck, I even enjoyed it more than tweeting.

Why did I enjoy it so much? Because Shawn wrote for an audience of one; he wrote his blog for himself above everyone else “When I write something for shawnblanc.net and hit publish, I want to then open up my homepage and read my own article. And I want to really, really enjoy it.” He wanted to enjoy his own content. And that made me love his posts even more.

Words of life

I hate to rave on and on about Shawn’s blog as I know I would be embarrassed if someone did the same for me, but I believe there is something to learn from the way Shawn writes. When I read over the pages of his blog, his words come alive. In all honesty, I have no words to describe it (no pun intended).

Words have power. And words, real words, are the ones that speak to me and come alive in my life. It’s addictive - in a good way. When I finished reading every word on Shawn’s entire blog, I started googling for more articles from him (and I did end up finding some). It didn’t have to be about anything in particular. It wasn’t the topic. It was the passion and the realism behind the words that allowed me to see into his life. It could have been about quantum physics, and I would have been glued to my seat.

It’s the exact reason that John wanted to write. He wanted to write for someone that would “like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word.”

Fear of words

The problem with writing words of life is that it requires you to be vulnerable. You have to open yourself up, and allow your readers to glimpse into your life. You have to be yourself, and write with passion.

Shawn Blanc:

The problem is the fear of man. That fear to be ourselves, to speak truthfully and honestly, to stand up for what we know to be right and true and beautiful and wonderful.

That is why I’m sitting here on a Sunday night - Victoria Day’s Eve - in front of my laptop immersed and typing away in Writeroom with fireworks exploding all around. Because I want a voice of my own. I want to write for myself. I want to enjoy every word that I write, and savour them over again and again.

I’ve read through all the secret sauce recipes of blogging. How to write the killer headlines, and how to attract the crowds. Keywords and SEO and stats and traffic. But I’m tired of all that. I just want to write.

Some replies I received on twitter today caused me to think about people’s motivation for blogging - or at that, content creation as a whole.

There are those that drink the kool-aid, and buy the “$100 000 a month in 30 days” books and have dreams of rich and fame. They buy all the resources, and are convinced they could become millionaires in the first few months of blogging. They dream of the wealth, the popularity, and the glory of getting rich quick with blogging.

On the other side of the spectrum are the humble bloggers. They are the ones that constantly pump out great content. Their blogs - no matter the topic - have a voice to them. A voice that defines them. A voice that lures me, as a reader, in. A voice that make me want to read more. A voice that brings a smile to my face whenever I see an update from their RSS feed.

Now, ask yourself, which one are you?

In all fairness, it is rare to find someone on either extreme. Often, it is more subtle. A blogger sees the money to be made, and becomes consumed by it. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that content producers should get paid for their work, but the problem begins when the focus shifts from the content to the money.

Trust me, motivation by fame, money, or power will affect your content. And not for the better.

Let’s go back to how this thought got planted in my head. It started with me reading Chris Bowler’s latest blog post - ‘On Deck’. He wrote about his goal to one day become a full-time blogger, making a living off his work. Why does he say he wants to do that?

“To be able to research, to write and to experiment with the things I’m excited and passionate about — sounds like a dream job to me.”

He goes on to mention how the only ads that he would want to adorn his site would be via The Deck because it doesn’t “detract from the content the reader sees, while rewarding the author for his/her time and efforts”.

Precisely!

Chris gets it. Blogging is not about cramming as many animated ads as possible on a page. It’s about the content. It’s about letting the content speak for itself. Content creation in any form is not easy, and the content creators have a right to make money from their work. But there is a big difference between making money for your work, and working for money.

And that is why I admire Chris. He found his passion. He has a goal. And he has now found a spot in my blogroll. I don’t think he’s “big headed” or conceited - on the contrary, much more humble than I could ever be.

Focus on the content. Keep at it, and you won’t be going anywhere other than onward, and upward.

While I was browsing twitter today, I happened to stumble across this “post” from Ted Winder. Basically, he was expressing his frustrations with the blogging medium, and has decided to quit. In his final farewell, he makes a couple of statements that I disagree with, and were blatantly targeted at myself. Let’s tackle this one Gruber-style.

I accidentally deleted my wp-content folder. You know, that essential folder with your design and plugins in? Me, being me, I didn’t have a backup - I don’t actually have backups of anything. Yeah, stupid.

Hey, don’t sweat it. I still remember the day that I accidentally deleted everything on my computer. I wasn’t a believer in backups then. Now I am.

The second reason is that blogging is overrated. What’s the point? A lot of the stuff I read on personal blogs now is stuff I already know - really simple, obvious stuff put into some exaggerated context by the blogger in question.

Woah, big statements there. By calling blogging in itself “overrated”, you are in fact saying that any medium that people use to express themselves is overrated. On the contrary, I would say that blogging is underrated. It is now possible to make your voice heard even if you aren’t a celebrity or a multi-millionaire.

Now for the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that you are talking about the content on these blogs - specifically “personal blogs”. I, like yourself, feel that there is a lot of junk content on blogs today. Spam, plagiarism, repetition, you name it. In fact, that is the very reason I abandoned that path, and wrote a letter to the blogosphere concerning it.

And recently, more and more people are writing on their blogs about ‘journeys through life’, about how blogging is all one big journey. Now, forgive me if I’m being rude, but no-one honestly cares about some random persons life, and blogging is most definitely not any kind of journey.

Ouch, that hurt.

I used to think like that too. Blogging was just a way to get information across. But after I began to subscribe to personal blogs, I started to look at blogging through different eyes. There was an emotional connection. I enjoyed sitting down and reading through a long blog post. I wanted to know about “random people’s lives” and what they are doing. That is the very reason I use twitter. To connect with others. If you don’t care about that person’s life, just click the unsubscribe button. No need to complain.

And I’ve said it before, blogging is a journey. A journey that I enjoy taking, and enjoy watching others go through. I’ve watched people (including myself) change and develop over time, and grow into a much better blogger the more they perservere.

Many people consider “tweets” and blogs to have no lasting value. I have to strongly disagree. There have been tweets and blog posts that have been moments of realization for myself, and have indeed changed my life.

It’s typing. That’s all it is. Typing, combined with the uncontrollable want to be popular.

Nope. It’s genuine thoughts that are being expressed through typing. Look beyond the words, and you may actually discover a deeper meaning.

And about the “uncontrollable wanting to be popular”. I write about my interests what’s going on in my life. If people think that’s cool, by all means, give me all the fame and fortune. I’m not going to change the way I blog because of it though.

I really do no have time any more to be churning out content, and it’s not worth me re-designing my blog. So I’m going to say thank you to all of my ex-readers, and leave it all behind.

RIP Ted Winder. The blogosphere will miss you.

I’ve figured it out.

I’ve figured out what it is about blogging that makes it so intriguing. What makes it so frustrating. What makes it so challenging.

It’s like photography in many ways. Actually, come to think of it, it’s a lot like life. Always aspiring. Always dreaming. Always falling short of your dreams. And then getting back up and trying again.

I’ve figured it out. Blogging is a journey. That’s been my mistake all along. Believing that one day I would “make it” as a blogger, and get all the success and fame that comes along with it. That I would reach the finish line, and be called a winner. I looked and drooled over the stats. I tried copying other’s dreams. Little did I know. You can never reach the end of blogging. You can never reach the finish line, and call yourself a winner. Much like life, you just keep going. And learning. And failing. And trying again.

And that’s my problem with blogging. I can’t setup a finish line in my mind that I am running towards. No. Instead, I am running head-on into the unknown. Not knowing where this journey will lead me. Not knowing where this journey will end.

For the longest time, I thought blogging was about you. That’s what everyone told me. “Blogging is a conversation”. Not my blog. My blog is a place where I share my thoughts. Where I write what I want to write. Not for you. For me.

I may have fallen, but I’m getting back up. I’m continuing the Journey.

Dear Bloggers,

We have the privilege of living in one of the greatest times in human history. No longer does it take millions of dollars to make our voices heard around the world. With the advent of the Internet, people are now connected in ways they never could have been before. With over 25,000 new blogs created every day, it is easy to get bombarded by the sheer amount of information. Sadly, the majority of blogs are cranking out nothing more than repetitive weblog rhetoric and worthless content.

Don’t get me wrong - I think that the opportunities the Internet has provided for bloggers is wonderful. But along with these opportunities comes a lot of abuse. It is easy for people to get caught up in the numbers and traffic, and forget what quality content is all about. Unfortunately, we live in a society where quality is not valued like it used to be. Instead, traffic is valued, and blogs quickly lose the vital connection between the author and the readers. There are some blogs out there that value this interaction between the author and their readers, but they are in an overwhelming minority.

Why is it that the vast majority of bloggers believe that the pumping out of repetitive content is what blogging is all about? Let me tell you something - it’s not. As bloggers, we have to stop treating blogs as mainstream journalism. Blogs operate on a much higher level than the mainstream media, because there is direct connection between the author and the reader. Whether through comments, a forum, or email, good blogs encourage interaction and feedback from the readers. This takes a blogging from a mere “speech” to a “conversation”.
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