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The Joy of Blogging

Tuesday, March 21 2006

I remember my mom had a cookbook years ago called The Joy of Cooking. Though first published in 1975, amazingly it's still in print. It's almost 1,000 pages long and very, very comprehensive. One day, when time affords itself, I may write The Joy of Blogging! Actually, since there never seems to be enough time as it is, it's doubtful I'll ever get that done, so I'm going to have to let this blog post suffice for now.

As I've lived my life out on the blogosphere for over two years (I started in December 2003), I found it to be something very pleasurable. It started out as a hobby, then morphed its way into a business. Somewhere along the way, blogging ceased to be fun and started to become more like work. When it did, my posting slowed down dramatically.

I suspect some of you have experienced the same phenomenon. One of the most difficult thing about blogging is that it's hard to keep it going and stay fresh. Here are a few tips to help you avoid this pitfall.

Blog about what you have a passion for. It's much easier to blog about something you're passionate about than otherwise. For a number of months I blogged at Weblogs Inc about life sciences, especially about illnesses - cancer, diabetes and heart disease. While I have great compassion for those who battle with those illnesses, it was difficult to post numerous times each day about things I had little experience with. Not having been a victim of any of those diseases it was not something I could speak about with great passion or fervor. What is it that you're enthused about? What gets your blood flowing? Blog about that.

Read other blogs
. If you find your blog idea tank running empty, it's always helpful to read what others are saying. RSS feeds are an easy way to accomplish that, and I suggest that if you haven't already done so, get an RSS reader like Bloglines or MyYahoo! and subscribe to feeds.

Take a blogging holiday on occasion. All work and no play makes bloggers a dull bunch. Sometimes it's best just to stop for a while. However, don't do what I did on this blog and wait three months, especially if you're blogging for business purposes. You will find yourself quickly falling into blogging oblivion.

Set regular times to blog. Like anything worth doing, blogging takes discipline. That's an ugly word in my vocabularly, but it's an absolute necessity. Set aside time each week to blog. Fortunately, most platforms allow you to timestamp posts, so they don't have to be written in real-time. I used to schedule Saturday mornings as my blog time and wrote several posts in one sitting, then timestamped them to appear throughout the week.

I hold great admiration for bloggers like Denise Wakeman, a marketing professional who seems to be a continual fount of information. She posts with great regularity and has done so for months now. Denise, and others like her, are a source of great inspiration for me.

I recenly got engaged to a beautiful lady from south Louisiana. She is a full-blooded Cajun! Though her I've learned a phrase associated with that culture, "Joie de Vivre!", the Joy of Life. These folks really know how to have a good time. That's really my point here. I'm learning to blog for the sheer joy of it again -- the "Joie de Blog!"

If you've experienced similar frustrations, I'd really, really be interested in hearing your story, especially if you found ways to overcome those blogging doldrums.

In addition, make sure to read these articles:

  • An Hour With Malcolm Gladwell
  • Blogging is back on track now - I was consumed by the schedule of Learning 2005 - an example of attending a conference that isn't ......
  • Going by the Book
  • In Other Words ...
  • eMarketing Excellence Summit Planned for Chicago;...
  • INDIANAPOLIS -- On-demand email software provider ExactTarget, along with the Customer Relationship Management Association (CRMA), Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) and the Chicago chapter ......
  • Hotel targets Silicon Valley techies
  • It's just not enough anymore to provide a clean, comfortable room with a coffee not and data port hook-up. Today's young business traveler is looking ......
  • Olivia
  • Even before her story begins, readers are following Olivia as she leaves a trail of clothes that she has eschewed in favor of the outfit ......
  • Staging a Painting
  • Californian Victoria K. Bell relies on her experience as an actress to compose paintings of compelling character, mood, and narrative.
  • Compass Points
  • Hoagland's (Tigers and Ice, 1999, etc.) autobiography reads much like his essays—seemingly meandering, but masterfully grounded in an independent sensibility and enlivened by a joie ......
  • "dear Donald, Dear Bennett"
  • Charming WWII-era letters exchanged by the founders of Random House. Both men were too old to be drafted (Cerf was 43 in 1942, Klopfer 40), ......
  • The Wealth Effect. (Business Briefs).
  • he Wealth Effect When people perceive that their net worth is higher, They tend to acquire the gods they desire. They buy new attire, a ......
  • Captains Outrageous
  • Walking an East Texas poultry plant as a security guard isn't the stuff of joie de vivre, and for some time Hap Collins has been ......
  • Jubal's Wish
  • The Woods really crank up the wattage for this joy-filled tale of a frog who finds a way to share his bliss. So filled with ......
  • Lesley Stevenson recently left FIRE magazine to...
  • Lesley Stevenson recently left FIRE magazine to pursue other interests. Lesley worked on FIRE for almost 15 years, and is known throughout the industry for ......
  • Dr. Seuss at work
  • We spoke with a young colleague the other day, the go-getter and normally blithe of spirit, G. The Problem Lady detected an acute lack of ......
  • Joie de Vivre Hotels and Mootz and Company...
  • SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 12, 1996--Chip Conley, President of Joie de Vivre Hotels -- the fastest growing hotel company in San Francisco -- and Nancy Mootz, ......
  • Emily Loves To Bounce
  • An exuberant child bounds through her day in a style many adults will recognize. With a carefree joie de vivre that cannot possibly be expressed ......

Latest Comments in  posts

Paul, welcome back! It's good to see you blogging again. And more important -- CONGRADS on your engagement.
By: Frank Ross on 3/21/06 at 12:00 PM
Paul, first, congratulations on your engagement -- that is wonderful and exciting. Second, I'm so glad to see you back in the blogosphere; I've missed your intelligent and informative posts. And third, thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot coming from you.
By: Denise Wakeman on 3/22/06 at 12:00 AM
I came to visit as a result of a recommendation from the BlogSquad who I have on RSS. What struck me about your posting is that it could be written for writers, or with a few word changes for visual artists or a few more word changes for sculptors (that's me). I'm blogging over at myspace for practice until I get a blog on my website and find that I have and am instinctively following all of your (excellent) recommendations as a simple extension of my artistic life. Which is to say, thanks for putting something I know instinctively into something concrete that I can file away to reference on a "slow" creative day. Tammy Vitale, www.TamsOriginals.com ...
By: Tammy Vitale on 3/24/06 at 12:00 AM
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