Blogging - an email to the world

'Maffi' today wonders if he should continue his blog:

I did say I wouldn't do this blog any more when I came home because I thought it would be very monotonous. 

It does seem to be a bit 'I did this, I did that' and not very interesting.

I have to wonder if it is really worth carrying on.

Short answer: Yes!

Long answer...

I started this as a cruising log, but I, too, found it dull work just chronicling my own movements.  

It wasn't that what was happening to me was dull, but that the process of writing it was hard work - and keeping it short took a lot longer!  Blogging doesn't make it easier to write.  It just makes it easier to publish.

A blogger shouldn't feel impelled to chronicle each day exhaustively.  Instead, just dart in and out of the occasional subject that piques your interest, briefly.  Think of it as an email to the world.

Also, keep to one subject or one day for each blog item.  Don't cram a whole week's diary into a post. 

A blog item has its own individual web address, so if someone else wants to link to something interesting you said, the more specific your entry, the easier it is to link to. 

For example, look at  Maffi's marvellous 'RIP' entry and photo for 18th December.  Lots of other good stuff on that page, but I wanted to link to that day directly.

Yes, Maffi, please keep going.  You are a good writer with your own voice and a refreshing point of view.  Don't feel obliged to 'catch up' if you skip a few days, that's all. 

That reminds me, I need to mention my own last-weekend's cruising.  I want to do it, I'll do it in two bite-sized pieces - Saturday evening and Sunday lunchtime separately - and I'll backdate the posts. 

But I'll do it mañana.  Or I might not; I don't feel obliged to.

Comments

[Bruce Napier]

Yeah, those are helpful comments, Andrew. My strategy, as you know, ias to do it every other day, usually. that way it doesn't feel like a chore, but stuff doesn't pile up. I try to keep to 800 words or so per post.

[Nic Chilton]

Quite a good insight into Blogging. There was a statistic in a PC mag article about blogs that showed a high level of blogs only get a single post. Jumping in and out is probably best, if it ever feels its like a chore to be completed each day you're less likely to continue.

My original boating blog was simply a transcript of cruising diaries I wrote whilst afloat with no posts in between! Hosted on a free site it was lost when it went down, but it gave me time to think. Since restarting I'm still "learning to walk" as far as blogging goes, but its just really finding the niche I want it to fit into.