I was inspired by [Tumbled Words] today. Marcia has written a nice article there about staying at blogging even when you want to quit. I found myself inspired to write a post, maybe even a series (time and comments will tell) entitled the same as her amazingly simple yet alluring headline: “Dear Bloggers.” After all, most my audience are bloggers and I certainly have some new stuff to share that I haven’t yet. I have stuff in my head. It’s incredible what you can learn and how much improvement you can track when you really apply yourself to blogging. I figure I might as well share it.
This post then may be the first in an advice series on keeping an online diary, aptly titled: DEAR BLOGGERS. Let me know what you think:
Rule#1) Blog from your “center.” We all have a place of calm or “stasis” that we find in our favorite chair, at Starbucks, in the grass back against a tree, at the beach, holding our kid, or whatever. In fact, we all should have many places like that. If we don’t, something should be done about it. Then there is the intangible place that we might call our “private world.”
It exists only insofar as we cultivate it.
As a blogger one must learn to meditate and spend time in that place because it is from that place where ones true writing “voice” will come. At the same time, if you are writing your blog for therapuetic reasons then that time finding your “center” will enable you to separate the meaningless from the substantial in your life. ALL THIS MAKES YOUR CONTENT. The guy who cut you off from the freeway from the child who handed you a dandelion. Do your readers and yourself a favor and follow rule#1 in blogging: Blog from your “center.” Like that old song goes “I don’t care how you get here, get here if you can.”
To the uninspired writers out there:
If you don’t know what your center is, wait to blog until you do. I have some really great ideas on how to recognize your center and cultivate it. It’s not “out there” Buddhist or Shaman stuff, but just a hodge-podge of truths I’ve collected in my quest to be a writer, online diarist, and a just plain calmer more “centered” person. Let me know if this subject interests you for future posts. OR, feel free to email me at: rileycentral at gmail dot com Blogging and this “mystical” center go hand in hand.
Finally, some FREE ADVICE to the uninspiring blogger who forces posts just to write and play seo games at the expense of the center:
If you DO know your center and STILL blog when you KNOW you are not in that “place,” DANGER WILL ROBINSON . . . the world is reading!!!
What’s more, you are wasting valuable time broadcasting gobbledygook when you could be living your life, building rich memories, and contributing to your readers’ entertainment! There’s some free advice from a debate ably reliable source ;)
Hi. I'm Damien Riley, MA.
3 Comments
Good advice given with a touch of humor. Glad you were inspired, Damien. Thank you for the link.
Yes, I would love to read more of your truths.
Give up blogging? Have people gone mad? Overall, I find blogging to be one of the more enjoyable things I have ever done!
I do think, though, that people put a lot of pressure on themselves to blog every day or several times a day. Sometimes it happens that you can, but not always. I have no problem going 3 or 4 days without a post if I don’t have anything that I think is interesting to write about. I think there’s bloggers that don’t feel this way, though or don’t recognize quality instead of quantity…..
Jessica
“I have no problem going 3 or 4 days without a post if I don’t have anything that I think is interesting to write about.”
Agreed. And of course I have no problem posting 3 or 4 times a day if I have things I think are interesting to write . . . or if i want to just see if the post button works ;)
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