An Exercise for Writers: The Meme About Blogging

Judd Corizan, from whom I acquired The Ris­ing Blog­ger, recently launched Sun­day Steal­ing. Each Sun­day, he rips off a meme from another blog­ger — giv­ing full credit and a link back to that author’s site, of course — and invite every­one to play along.

This week, Judd, et al. ripped off The Meme About Blog­ging from Momma at Momma Blogs A Lot.  Actu­ally, this par­tic­u­lar meme bears some sim­i­lar­ity to the What’s Your Story? exer­cise that was pop­u­lar in 2007.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing in this writ­ing exer­cise presents an oppor­tu­nity to pause, reflect, and enun­ci­ate your per­spec­tives on blog­ging.  If you do not have a blog, you can adapt the ques­tions to focus on why you write.  I hope that many of you will take a few min­utes to con­tem­plate and respond to the ques­tions.  Feel free to pro­vide your answers in the form of a com­ment or post a link to your own post!

1. How long have you been blogging?

I founded Col­lo­quium in March 2005.

2. Any advice to beginners?

It it best to estab­lish your own domain from the out­set, but if you are unde­cided about the name or over­all con­cept, you might wish to begin by using a free soft­ware plat­form like Blog­ger or Word­Press.  You can tran­si­tion to your own domain later, although there are asso­ci­ated drawbacks.

Blog­gers should acquaint them­selves with pru­dent, con­ser­v­a­tive blog­ging prac­tices and judi­ciously abide by those guide­lines.  For instance, you must pick the top­ics you blog about carefully,never reveal­ing infor­ma­tion about your employer, fel­low employ­ees, and pro­fes­sional pur­suits.  The most impor­tant things to keep in mind are: 1) You are never truly anony­mous online, even if you select and uti­lize a pseu­do­nym; and 2) every­thing you write and pub­lish online will remain there indef­i­nitely, even if you delete your entire blog.  Caches are forever!

For more infor­ma­tion, refer to my six-part series: Your Online Writ­ing Life:  Pro­tect Your Rep­u­ta­tion — and Future.

3. What are the good things blog­ging has brought to your life?

I have “met” some won­der­ful blog­ging friends and asso­ciates, most par­tic­u­larly my col­leagues at Write Any­thing.  I have improved my writ­ing and bol­stered my con­fi­dence in my abil­i­ties.  I learn some­thing new each and every day!

4. What would you con­sider the pitfalls?

Blog­ging can be time-consuming. I wish that I had more time to devote to read­ing and com­ment­ing on other folks’ blogs because I always enjoy and learn from what my fel­low blog­gers write.

5. Tell us about your blog name. Ever think of chang­ing it? If so, to what? Why?

I founded my site on Blog­ger with the title “Robert’s Legacy,” because I ini­tially wrote about my expe­ri­ences lit­i­gat­ing Con­ser­va­tor­ship of Wend­land, and the Terri Schi­avo case in Florida.  How­ever, I changed the name when I began explor­ing other top­ics and even­tu­ally trans­ferred my early, ini­tial posts on those top­ics to a new site with the same title:  Robert’s Legacy.

Some­times I con­sider aban­don­ing Col­lo­quium in favor of a more descrip­tive title related to writ­ing and blog­ging.  But so far, I haven’t thought a cre­ative title or con­cept.  I also think it was a mis­take to estab­lish a domain based upon my real name — largely because peo­ple mis­spell it nearly as often as they spell it correctly.

6. Know­ing what you know now, was start­ing a blog a good thing for you? Why or why not?

Yes!  I need the cre­ative out­let!  I have an extremely stress­ful, demand­ing career and I look for­ward to sit­ting down in front of my com­puter after a long day, com­pletely switch­ing gears, and unwind­ing by read­ing and writ­ing about any­thing and every­thing other than the top­ics I focus upon when work­ing.  In fact, within the next cou­ple of days, my new per­sonal lap­top will be arriv­ing, enabling me to read oth­ers’ work and draft posts when I have a spare moment while trav­el­ing on business.

7. How do you think blog­ging, blog­gers, or the blo­gos­phere has changed since you started?

When I started blog­ging, “Web 2.0″ and “social mar­ket­ing” were not yet a way of life.  I recall when it was a big deal to be using the “new” Blog­ger and remem­ber being very excited when my site was selected as one of the first tran­si­tioned to Blog­ger Beta!  I shud­der when I think about all the hours I spent mod­i­fy­ing my tem­plate, imple­ment­ing hacks to achieve fea­tures that we all take for granted now.  The advances in blog­ging soft­ware that have been made in the less than four years I have been blog­ging are mind-boggling, and Word­Press upgrades seem to be issued in increasingly-rapid suc­ces­sion. I can’t even imag­ine what it will be like in another three to four years.

8. Ulti­mately, what would you like your blog to accom­plish for you or others?

I’m only in it for enjoy­ment and stress reduc­tion.  When it ceases to be fun, I will dis­ap­pear from the blo­gos­phere.  But if, while I’m here, I can impart some use­ful infor­ma­tion or encour­age a fel­low writer to keep work­ing to improve his/her tech­nique, I will con­sider my time to have been well spent.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Col­lo­quium on Writ­ing, Sun­day Steal­ing, The Meme About Blogging

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