I’ve been doing this blog for almost ten years. I have thousands of posts published and yet I am not too much the wiser on how to do this. But I’ve learned a few things in this journey I thought I might share.
- Why you start writing may not be why you continue to write.
- Your style of writing may change drastically. My posts were often hundreds of words long. Now I average much less than one hundred words per post. Personally, I feel I say more with the changes I’ve made.
- You don’t have to follow everyone who follows you. Check them out, like posts if you are drawn to them. Follow them in return if their work is of interest to you.
- Respond to comments.
- Leave comments.
- Do not leave comments asking/telling someone to follow you (too much pressure!). 😉
- Do not leave links to your blog in someone else’s comments unless you ask first. Personally I’ve never refused anyone who has asked. It’s always nice to ask first. In my experience the links were always appropriate, and I appreciated the connection the other writer had with what was common between us. Or, someone who wanted to share a different view from what I had written.
- People may read your posts and not receive the same message that you sent out with your words. Everyone’s perceptions are different. That’s okay. Someone else receiving a different message doesn’t change what your words meant to you.
- Change is a constant in blog world. I used to get zero readers/comments, then I used to get MANY readers/comments, then I get barely any, then it goes back again.
- I’ve communicated with humans for years via this blog, then never hear from them again. Though bloggers ‘appear’ to share a lot of information in some regards, we don’t know the lives being lived on the other side of the computer screen. I have met many of the peoples behind the blogs. And I have never known anything more about some bloggers than the words they write. It’s everyone’s right to be as private/discreet/anonymous as they desire.
- People who write opinions are just as capable of disagreeing as those who speak them or meme them.
- Stats are not reliable.
- If you enjoy doing ‘this’, then do it. The work conditions are great: in your pajamas, or grubby clothes, at home, in your recliner, in your backyard, in the car at lunch break from work, sitting in a castle ruins in Ireland. Can’t ask for better than those kind of options.
- The pay sucks.
- The payback can be amazing.
- Visiting with people from around the world, or down the street, is like having a diversified coffee shop in whichever of the above options you chose to write from.
- Whatever it is you want to garner from blogging, you will. Like anything else you do, what you are looking for, you will find.
- I think blogging has helped keep the written world alive in a world of videos, memes, and convenience.
I hope others share what they’ve learned, discovered, changed about their blog journey.
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The Chatter Blog 