One key to being a great blog writer is to find your rhythm. So many sites are manufacturing monotone content because they feel outward or inward pressure to write at least once every 24 hours. But if you can’t write once a day then don’t; and it is OK. Write on Mondays and Wednesdays. Or just Mondays. If you were publishing one well-written, insightful post ever Monday I would watch for it. If you were publishing 7 posts that never went anywhere I would leave.
This is on the same lines as being a great weblog reader.
John said:
Shawn, something that I do when my schedule is pretty tight for an upcoming week is to block-schedule a time (usually Sunday nights) when I will sit down and write maybe 4-5 blog posts and pre-publish them on my blog with future dates so that during the week I know that there is quality content there. I then just need to follow-up comments etc. Although it is not as good as getting in to your own rhythm of writing, it is a fallback option in case writing is being crowded out by the tyranny of the urgent
Posted on April 5, 2007 at 9:43 am
{Shawn} said:
@ John: I do that often. Usually not because I’m planning ahead, but because I’ll have a sudden burst of inspiration and write several posts at once. Then take advantage of them and pre-publish. It’s a great trick.
Posted on April 5, 2007 at 10:07 am
Ducky said:
Good thoughts, Shawn. I think I’m comfortable ith my tone and content, but I still have problems with rhythm on occasion. I’m a compulsive writer — I got a degree in writing because I figured I might as well put it on my c.v. — so I often find myself typing blog posts that really don’t go anywhere but satisfy the itch in my brain. I’ve gotten better about deleting those before I post them. In my opinion, readers can always tell the difference between a post you’ve really thought out ahead of time and a post that’s just filler/an overflow of random thoughts.
Which is not to say filler and random thoughts can’t be somewhat interesting or funny, if used sparingly. But a constant stream of those kind of posts … it’s like feeding your readers nothing but popcorn. They’ll go elsewhere for steak.
Posted on April 5, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Life is a Blog - Work Ethic » Ronalfy.com said:
[…] you would probably be served useless garbage. Shawn Blanc wrote a rather convicting post that reinforces why I feel I don’t have to write everyday. There were times I would post just to post. I try not to do that […]
Posted on April 12, 2007 at 6:02 am