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?
But but, isn’t it every writer’s dream to reach out their writing to as many people as possible?
I’m pretty sure constructive criticism is proportional to the blog reader. The more people who reads a certain post, the higher percentage that post will receive comments advising the writer on how to improve their writing, which is beneficial to the next blog post.
Spending time on attracting readers to their blog couldn’t be such a bad thing, yes?
Don’t you think so?
A very famous writer once wrote: “To thy own self be true’. He wasn’t a blogger but he was a writer of populist plays.
I think the danger you refer to is when you change your writing – either by frequency or subject to pander to your perception of your audience’s wishes.
And it is seductive.
Because we all like to be read.
🙂
The smart blogger then takes a note of what gets a reaction, but holds true to their original style.
Interesting read, and true. What kind of writer are you other than a blogger? Short stories?
@ 3point8 : I am not denying the importance of making an effort to attract readers to your blog. What I am trying to say though is that your efforts to attract readers to the blog should not exceed your efforts to actually write on the blog.
@ Cellobella : I agree with you completely!
@ Tamsyn : I have written some short stories, and I am also trying to write a short novel when I get the time for it.
I have to agree with you and I have a writing professor who does as well. I used to spend so much time on my blog and promoting it through sites like Entrecard that my work on serious fiction writing fell behind because there are only so many hours in a day.
A blog is seductive and you do make friends and have that instant feedback and if you want anyone to find it, you have to spend time promoting it and reading other blogs as well.
I’m only posting once a week now, letting some of the blogging go and concentrating on my book.
Whether we’re blogging about a specialty area, to publicize our books, or mainly for the fun of interacting with others, the first step (for me, anyway) was setting limits. Just how much time do I have and what’s the payoff?
If, as a writer, I’m blogging about, say, gardening, am I attacting a following, am I becoming known as an expert, and most importantly, am I starting to attract offers to write for money. After all, if one looks at writing as a career, one expects to improve one’s craft and credentials over time and end up being paid for what one does.
Is the blog really leading one down that road or is it simply taking up more and more time each week without any real return; worse yet, when the week is over, was more time spent blogging than was spent doing working on paying work?
It’s not an easy call.
Malcolm
Interesting post. To avoid these negative aspects of blogging, I think it’s important to have clear aims for what you hope to achieve from your blog. If it’s to generate paying work, for example, then all (or at any rate most) of your posts should contribute towards this in some way, e.g. by showcasing your professional skills. In my view it’s all too easy for bloggers to lose focus. Blogging then becomes simply a way of passing time and putting off doing any real, productive work. And yes, I know I’m guilty of this myself on occasion!
I blog because I love to write, and writing is one of my outlets when I’m stressed out or pressured. You are right that “fast” is not good. There were times that I typed my thoughts directly into the blog’s template , only to discover later that I had committed several typos.
An ideal set up would be, “write, let it incubate for sometime, then proofread” before finally publishing.
In the blog world however, we have to come up with “fast” articles and at times the quality suffers..Haste makes waste..but do we have a choice, if we want to maintain our blogs?
I think that you will find that there are always going to be some negative things about blogging. Yes, I got into the social bookmarking thing. It took most of my time before I decided that it wasn’t worth it. Entrecard is a perfect example of that. Takes forever to do all 300 drops and now they allow more blogs for each person. Who has time for all that??? Oh yeah, buy the EC. In their dreams.
I also fell into the trap of trying to blog what people wanted to see. That failed miserably. I expected to see massive hits from a popular subject. Nope. The fact is that now I blog what I want to and I don’t really care if anyone likes it or not anymore.
And yes, I am one of those totally unsophisticated
people who blog for…..GASP….money. It helps pay the bills. Shrug. But that’s part of me too.
I have gotten into fast food blogging a time or two if I have a deadline but I was thinking about that. Journalists have the same problem, deadlines. They write quickly when they have to do so. That does not mean that the writing suffers if they can do it right.
Personally, I think that blogging is great. I love it. Yes, there are negatives but so what? And I don’t care if some professor in podunk, Somewhere doesn’t like blogging. I do.
I’ll confess that sometimes I use photos to “cheat.” Instead of spending time to WRITE, I just stick in a good looking picture. That satisfies the reader and looks impressive. But I didn’t write (or at least not a lot).