Welcome to the Be A Better Blogger- Sustain Your Effort Edition. This is where I share all the tricks of trade at cut rate prices with you. Ok, that last part was a lie because what I am sharing here is absolutely free.
The only word in the entire English language that sounds prettier than Free is your own name. That is right, people love the sound of their own name. And remember if you are someone who doesn’t it means that you suffer from severe mental and emotional problems. Don’t you just love how I insult those who disagree with me because everyone knows that the best way to convince someone that they are wrong is to insult them.
Or maybe that just works in politics, I dunno. Sometimes I think about becoming a politician. Might be fun to be completely detached from reality and say whatever the hell I want and pretend that I have all the answers.
There Is a Point and A Purpose
There is a point and a purpose to all that I do here. Every single dot, dash and semi colon has its place. Don’t talk to me about being grammatically challenged because I have forgotten more than you once knew, probably forgot more than your parents too.
I feel pretty good about what happens here. I still like showing up each day and I still feel like I can punch out hundreds of thousands of words with reckless abandon.
That reckless abandon is important to me. It is part of how I know that writing is something that is filled with joy for me. And that is part of my daily mission to find joy and do the things that help me manifest it in positive ways.
Ideally that means that you feel my joy and it rubs off on you just a little bit.
Relate to Others
These words we share here are offered for a million different reasons by a million different people. If our purpose is to build a community of readers, writers and others than those words have to help others relate to you. They have to serve as a window into your world and shine a light on things that others recognize within themselves.
When you work hard to build community and you give back you find that when you ask for help people are willing to give it. I am touched and proud to say there was a very noticeable response to my request for you to follow me on the various social media platforms I maintain a presence upon.
Just to give you a sense of what happened, the number of people who are signed up to follow my Facebook page increased by more than 35%. That is a substantial increase but it didn’t come just because I asked nor because people think I am nice.
It is the result of hard work and interaction with others.
Those last three words are critical: interaction with others. There is no difference between the online and offline worlds. People want to be treated well. You can’t ask for favors unless you are willing to give and that is perfectly ok.
One of the ways I try to and build engagement and interaction is by asking questions like How Old Should Children Be When They Receive Their First Cellphone? and How Long Does It Take To Build A Community?
When you ask questions you provide a place and opportunity for your community to respond. It is a call to action and every post should have one in it.
Sustain Your Effort
There are a lot of important things to remember about blogging and no doubt that sometimes it can feel overwhelming. A good design that is user friendly, fast loading page and pleasing to the eye goes a long way.
It is something that I need to work on here. I need more images and I need to tweak things. Eight years into this crazy game I am constantly juggling and adjusting this and that. But in my eyes that is only part of the package and in some respects secondary.
Great content makes a huge difference too, but if you can’t sustain your effort than it might not matter. There are no overnight success stories in blogging at least not the way that I define it. You need time to figure out who you are and to find your voice but you also need time to build your community.
When you sustain your effort these things happen at a natural pace and you wake up one day with a broad smile on your face because there is beauty in blogging. You have built something. You are the creator of a world that otherwise would not be and you are privy to something special.
While you ruminate upon that I’ll leave you with some links to some of the most popular posts here and the last set of songs I listened to on iTunes.
- 5 Secrets Great Bloggers Use Daily
- Advice For New Bloggers
- Useful Suggestions For Creating Content
- The Importance of Creativity
- 7 Things I Want To Do Before I Die
- Three Reasons Why I Love Google Plus
And as promised a snapshot of some of what is carrying me through the morning:
- Waterfall “May This be Love” – Jimi Hendrix
- You Don’t Know Me– Ray Charles
- Heart of Gold– Johnny Cash
- I Hung My Head– Johnny Cash
- Suspicious Minds– Elvis Presley
- In The Ghetto- Elvis Presley
- Blue Suede Shoes– Elvis Presley
See you in the comments.
Thanks for the tips!
I’m convinced, at least in my own case, that routine helps with sustainability. I’m well over 1000 consecutive posts, and I can’t imagine a day without writing. I’ve looked back at early posts and there’s been improvement. That is exciting.
There is much more I can do to improve my blog. I think I’ll head off and read some of those links you’ve provided, because while I’m sure there is a lot of room for improvement, I’m equally sure that there are hundreds of ideas I’ve never considered.
Knowing you don’t know, is 43% of the battle.
Hi Brian,
I have noticed that since my routine has been disturbed my writing hasn’t been as consistent, I am posting with less frequency. The question is whether the quality has been affected, not sure.
Anyhoo, the best way I know of becoming a writer is to practice so I think that all of the work we do is useful, beneficial and worthwhile.
And now I am off to search for the 57% I don’t know.
Loved this post. You obviously were having a great time when you wrote this.
But did you have to expose my severe mental and emotional issues? Yes, I admit it, there were times in school when my mind wandered in class. You know what were the words I dreaded hearing most? My name! Being called on when my mind was on vacation in the Land of Carolyn was all too frequent. It’s as if the teachers knew I wasn’t paying attention. Hmmm…
You’re right, writing has to be a passion. You have to be passionate about your topic and about writing. Check and check. You are covered on both.
If you go into politics I will only vote for you if you promise to continue writing.
Hi Carolyn,
Yes, this was fun to write and you weren’t the only one whose mind wandered during class. Most of the time I came up with an appropriate response to the questions the teachers asked, but every now and then…
If I go into politics I promise to keep writing.
It was good speaking with you at the hangout.