Friday, September 02, 2005

Thoughts on how to attain blogging glory

I don’t have much work today, so I’ve had the time to read a number of blogs. What is it that makes some blogs interesting and others just narrations? I’m not quite sure. Some write from the soul about what they feel and think, some write about places they’ve been to or people they know, some people just write about nothing (but get away with it pretty well because its well-written). How do you know what type to be? Or what type is best? One thing I have noted about the most interesting (which may not be the best-written) or best-written (which may not be the most interesting) blogs is that the former category usually write about their lives, and the latter are the creative lot. In literary terms, I mean – you know, with poems, or quotes, or references to multiple music lyrics thrown in. I think I’m getting myself into a soup here - and if I am I care a damn, by the way – but I think its better to let thoughts out loud. Then even if you find your thoughts contradicting each other, at some point you will get clarity.

So, of course there are blogs that are both interesting and well-written. Many of those belong to famous people. Some of those are teenager or students – I think its because that is the age when you have a lot of things to do and people to meet and thanks to your course or classes, you tend to have practice in writing. Which is not the case with me these days, unfortunately, because work usually means I am slowly killing the creativity in me. Currently, blogging doesn’t count, in my opinion, because at the moment most of my blog pieces are descriptions. They aren’t terribly interesting nor, thanks to my lack of writing practice, are they well-written. Anyway, in addition to these categories there are also those that are merely informative (i.e, they point to various interesting articles), and others that are informative and critical (those who point to interesting articles but also comment on them briefly).

I think the key (as I was advising a friend recently, as if I am the One Who Knows All About Blogging) is to just break the barriers down. Some people who blog are often scared about letting out their real idenities to the world, and they have good reason to be in this day and age of computer hacking etc etc. Sometimes that means that they are not completely honest – what if someone they know chances to read their blog and identifies them? That, for example, means that you can’t write about your crappy day at work because someone from work might actually read it and who knows what will happen then. A woman actually lost her job because of exactly that, by the way. Dooce, she calls herself. A solution to this problem is to refer to the people in your life by initials – such as , ‘S said this’ or ‘V thinks that’. That’s not such a bad idea, I’m beginning to think. Anonymity and honesty together.

So – the whole point of me writing this is so that I could figure out what type I should be.

I still don’t know.

Till then, I guess its going to be trial-and-error. But I SO want to attain blogging mastery soon!

2 comments:

One Who Nets The Dot said...

You are a hopeless romantic,highly creative, and write extremely well! I enjoy reading blogs and subscribe to a variety of them. I assure you that for a person who doesn't have a specific agenda or cause (correct me if I am wrong), you do an awesome job. keep doing what you do and thank you.

Anjali said...

Thanks!