Starting a blog, as the cliche goes, is like giving birth to a baby. You give birth to it, take care of it, help it bloom, and hope it grows into an independent youth who can take care of himself.

But, if at some point you neglect  the baby, there is a good chance that it might not grow up to be “normal”. The same thing happens with a blog.

And when you know that you have neglected your baby, you feel guilty. That is how I feel right now, because I think I have been neglecting this blog for a very long time. Oft and again I have tried to get back on track with the blog, and oft and again I have failed.

But as they say, failure is no reason to give up. If anything, it is a reason to try harder.

So, once again, I am going to try and get the blog back on track. Hope this time it stays on track!

So, the announcement has finally come: BlogRush is shutting down. But, I am sure, BlogRush was already dead for most people. I, for one, have not logged into my BlogRush account for ages. In fact, I had all but forgotten about BlogRush when I got the e-mail from the BlogRush system.

I had earlier written a post about “Why BlogRush failed and Entrecard Succeeded ?” and I still stand by most of what I had said in that post.

Initially, when BlogRush was launched, it did spread like wild fire, but I think that had more to do with the fact that John knew most of the probloggers and they helped him spread the word about BlogRush. I had read about BlogRush on Darren’s blog, and I checked the site out. At that time, I felt that the idea was good and had potential. So, I was quick to install the widget and I even wrote a post about this new service.

But, with time, it became evident that BlogRush was not going to be the next big thing, even though they launched the traffic jam site to complement BlogRush. In spite of the failure, I must say the BlogRush was a great idea and my best wishes are with the BlogRush team for their next project.

What are your thoughts about BlogRush shutting down?

It has been more than a month since I have updated this blog. This is not good as this was definitely not what I had wanted for this blog. Of course, I always knew that I would never be like many other bloggers, who make it a point to blog atleast once every day. Yet, I had also not thought that things would come to such a pass that I would not have a posted in over a month.

Something tells me that I am not the only one who is in a position like this. I see many blogs on the Internet that start off very well, but begin to lose steam in a while, and are eventually given up. Why is it that many bloggers find it easy to keep blogging over a period of time, while others find it very difficult to continue beyond the first few months?

I am sure there are many answers to the question, and I would love to hear what you have to say on the subject.

But, based on my own experineces, I feel that one of the answers to the question is : Organization!

Being a good blogger, like many other things, is about being organized.  One has to organize both tangible things ( blogging space, table , PC or Notebook etc.) as well as non tangible things (thoughts, ideas, emotions etc.).

Many pro-bloggers have this habit of putting up pictures of their blogging space. One can’t help but be impressed by the neat and clutter-free environment they are operating from. When I compare this with my own working space, I find that my table is so full of papers, and books and stuff that I find it quite difficult to find a place to set my Notebook on.

On a similar note, I think a good blogger is one whose thoughts and ideas are very well organized in the head, as this organization usually gets reflected in the blog too. Contrast it with someone who has many great ideas, but they are so random and unorganized  that when he tries to pen them down, he can’t get hold of even a single idea.

So, my advice to someone who is in the middle of a blogging slump would be to clear the clutter and become organized…right away!

Many of us discover blogging through our love for writing. We like to write, and we also like to hope that some one is going to read what we write. A blog provides us with an easy way to share our writing and ideas with others, and before we know it, we are addicted to blogging.

Like most things in life, blogging, too, has a negative side. A writer can fall into the blogging trap without having the least idea that such a thing exists, and by the time he realises he is in a trap he has wasted a considerable amount of time, and time once lost can never ever be got back. Here are a few things that one should be careful about when blogging:

The “Fast Food” Trap : Fast food can be tasty, and fast food can be easy to get, but too much of fast food is never good for your health.
Why is blogging like fast food though, you say? Simply because it does exactly the same thing that fast food does. It can give you an instant response. As soon as you have posted your post you can start tracking how many people have visited your blog, and comments can provide instant gratification too. But as soon as the hits and the comments dry up, you are left feeling as hungry as you were before you had posted. Soon, you start posting more and more, but the quality begins to deteriorate, and so does your blogging health.

The “Design” Trap :  A good blog is as much about design as it is about writing.  There are blogs with excellent design out there, and when we look at them the inadequacies of our own design become eyesores to us. So, we try to work on the design of our own blog. Instead of spending our time focusing on what the content of our blog should be, we are wasting time looking for ways and means to have a better layout for our blog. I am sure all of you who have tried it know that designing a blog is not an easy job, especially if you are not very good with your HTML and CSS stuff.

The solution to this problem lies in either getting someone else to do your layout for you, or be satisfied with a free template and, make up for that with your writing.

The “Social Networking” Trap : Many people say that social networking is the life and blood of a blog. I say that while social networking could be important for a blog’s popularity, it, more often than not, becomes a slow poison for a blog. As one becomes involved with more and more social networking sites (and their numbers are still growing, and with each being touted as the next best thing), one begins to spend less and less time on one’s own blog, which eventually negatively affects your blogging and writing health.

I am sure there are many other ways in which blogging negatively affects our writing. Can you think of any?

Comments are one of the most important part of any blog. For a growing blog, comments are like water that helps a sapling to grow into a majestic tree. Comments are also a unique feature of the blogs, and the real time interaction, between the blogger and the visitor, that comments facilitate, I think, is one of the major reasons for the popularity of the blogs.

How a blogger manages the comments can either encourage, or discourage, a visitor to leave a comment or not. 

The first question, then, is : Is it a good idea to moderate comments?

I don’t think it is, because when I comment on a blog it satisfies me immensely to see my comment get posted immediately. But, then, as experience has taught me, there are a few people out there who can leave comments that you would rather not have on your blog. So, choosing to moderate comments is like choosing the lesser of the two evils.

The next question: How do you respond to a comment?

The easiest and the best way, they tell me,  is to respond to it in your comment section and to go back to the commenter’s blog and leave a comment there. But, for some reason, I feel that commenting in my own comment section may seem to some as an attempt to artificially inflate the comment count. It is dificult to please all, isn’t it?

But, from now, I have decided to change that, and I am going to be responding to the comments in the comment section itself. And, I am going to try and comment on most blogs that comment here.

That last part raises a question in my mind that I hope some of you can answer for me. When you leave a comment on someone’s blog, do you check back to see if the blogger has responded to it?

Also, do you have a comment policy? If yes, what is it?