I was thinking about blogging for the last couple of weeks and how certain people tend to succeed a blogging while other’s do not. Writing a blog requires passion, work and creativity. It is an art form in itself and in many ways is harder than writing for a daily newspaper.
I was in my University’s career center looking through some of the books on print journalism and I discovered that a weekly columnist generally gets paid more than a staff writer. What? How does that work?
If a staff writer is required to write several times a week then why does a columnist receive more money for a column that is only published once a week? Now this discussion isn’t about money but it helps to understand the situation. The columnist is being paid to be creative and the staff writer is being paid to crank out news articles.
I’ve done some research on this and apparently a staff writer will use a standard template to pump out multiple news articles to fill the news section of the paper. Feature writers get paid a little more; then opinions writers and so on. The point is that the more you head up the creativity scale, the harder the work gets.
Blogging is great because there are no boundaries to what you can do as a writer. If you want to write about how significant your MacBook purchase was, you can have it your way. No responsibilities and no there to tell you what to do. I know it sounds cliched to say it, but blogging is freedom.
Now that doesn’t mean that everyone’s good at it. If you’re regurgitating the news via RSS syndication, then that’s not very good at all. If you’re regurgitating the news and throwing out a couple of comments then that’s kind of better. But the truly good blogs, or at least the ones with the most intellectual value, are the ones with good original content.
Far too often I hear people discuss in comment/forums/ about “your [their] site’s content” when in fact their content is somebody elses content with a few random idea’s and bits of commentary thrown to the wind. And that’s not to make fun of anyone in particular. Being creative is hard. Oil painting is hard. Poetry is hard. Dancing is hard. And now blogging is hard.
Well what are you waiting for? Get to it!
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Michael! It sounds like you landed on your feet at school. That’s great news indeed.
I think your comparison of blogging to column writing is quite apt. It helps to have a focus, which can make it easier to get started as you sit in front of an empty screen. It also helps to know yourself and know how much is enough and how much is too much. Better to blog less than kill yourself (and your readers) with frequent, passion-less posts.
I think the most important motivator for any good work is pleasure. If you love what you do, you will do it long enough and often enough to become good at it. Write about what you love and everything else will follow.
Passion is a very important part to blogging. Although I could get into an entirely different post on fake passion and suck ups.
Ha ha but yes I’m here. That’s right folks I’m officially a college brat. It’s good to be back Lily.
very true as u said blogging is passion of the desired.
Very true!!!
I’m kinda new to blogging and I’ve spent a lot of time looking around at other blogs. I was getting a bit disillusioned by all the blogs that just regurgitate the news of the day. Thanks for encouraging those of us who try to be different 🙂
Thank you for encouraging people to quit lying, cheating, and stealing from others and to start being original on their own.
Yes, it’s hard work being original, but that’s a reward in & of itself. We’ve become far too lazy in today’s society and we need to get up off those fat, potato-chipped duffs and get cracking on our own original ideas.
Thank you!
Originality is a True Minority these days!
I’ve been blogging for over a year now.
When I first started this, I was very unsure of what to write in my blog on Blogger, which is a morning-time blog that I update every morning (it’s currently on hiatus because of a computer problem), so I just wrote things about my job, which I got tired of doing really fast.
Right now, I’ve moved from writing lame things about my job to writing about everything from girls to St. Louis Cardinals baseball. It seems that the only posts that people actually read are the ones that I write about various girls that I have an interest in. No one seems to care about the Cardinals or how my Fantasy Baseball team is doing, they want to hear about whichever girl I’m kinda feeling at the moment.
Blogging for me over the last 13 months has been a source of healing and peace. Before I even started blogging, I was arrested over a column I wrote for a small newspaper in my hometown (the charges were later dropped) and had a falling out with the editor of that same newspaper.
I started blogging as my frnd introduced me to it. i knew abt it before, but was never sure if i can do it. i m doing it for past few months.. its very satisfactory exp. i m really happy that i started. it allows u to chat with ur self, and get lot help frm ppl around.
after few post, i ended up with my on thoughts abt blogging.
my thoughts on blogging….
http://paradoxpackets.wordpress.com/2006/08/21/blogging-what-it-is/
I have only been blogging for a short time to try and address many questions that I get via e-mail. I simply wasn’t able to answer every question that I got, so blogging seemed like the best way to deal with all of the e-mails/questions. Blogging is defintely not easy as the readers are so different from one another and I suppose normally when you write you have a particular audience that you address but with blogging you try to target your audience but ultimately your really writing for anyone who is reading.
You state: “…in fact their content is somebody else’s content with a few random idea’s and bits of commentary thrown to the wind.” Isn’t that exactly what THIS blog is??? And as for frequent updating, this blog hasn’t had an original post for a week!
Hello disembedded, you know there’s some truth to that. My only defense is that I have to be a friend first, a college student second, a 9rules Community Leader third and a Best Blog editor fourth so I’m a little swamped now.
Dear Michael,
Very sorry that I sounded a bit strident. Knowing now about all the things that you’re having to juggle, I can perfectly understand. With best wishes, Disembedded.
Now that you know good luck at blogging. Best Wishes from Blue’s Place
Thanks, Blue’s Place !!
Ooops…I really meant Bluejeans!!
You are very right that writing a blog is an art.
Hi! Very encouraging report as far as people like me who love to write on anything under the sun but end up spending the day doing some other jobs as that’s my bread-n-butter job demands. Blog has one negativity – original writngs can be copied by someone else and get published without you knowing that. Is there any legal safeguard?
Blogging’s definitely hard. Not only do we have to be good columnists, per se, we nearly have to write everyday! Or multiple times a day to even get seen. *sighs* Thanks for this post. It puts everything into a very daunting perspective… But that helps me.
“To blog, or not to blog: that is the question:”
I have kept a journal for almost two years only to stop and start writing more creatively through screenplays. From what I have learned about blogging so far, it is absolutely a “yes” for me!
Blogging is hard, blogging a science-fiction story is harder 😛 Especially if you suffer from a bit of writer’s block and write better during night time 🙂
Original content I can muster. No problem. What gets me is RSS feeds, tags, and other sorts of feed aggregators, of which I have absolutely no skill.
Very interesting about creativity and higher pay at the newspaper. Seems I need to look for new work
I’ve started a new blog here at WordPress and think I have some out-of-the-norm stuff there. Would love to have some of you serious blog-readers take a look. http://eyespi20.wordpress.com/
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Well there it is once again something I thought was going to be easy and so I start blogging and reading other people’s blogs and except for here not too much sensible stuff going on.
Yo should read Telstra’s new Bigblog , there are some pretty bit’s of less that average comments generated by stay at home mums and single mums who would have done better to clean their homes and train thier kids to be good citizens than to waste their time on the web blogging to who gives a damn .
Exposing their pathetic dumb headed selves and thinking it’s entertaining ( it might be if it weren’t so often the same old thing over and over again hubby’s sexist faults kids out of control ).which they often lace with tastless language Ugh!
Blogging! I dunno once you run out of ideas what yo goin to do.?.
http://www.patsite.com
Blogging is hard for hardworking people. 🙂
“Work smart, not work hard.”
Very creative.
Lorelli is a great blogger but then she is on the road and travelling like that obviously stimulates the mind. No thats not it she is a talented writer ….born with it I’d say Just love that viscious hair cut tale …she says she has a blog with all of them on it I must find it can always do with a laugh,
To blog or not to blog. Indeedy …
I don’t see a problem at all.
First of all you need more than one blog, and second you don’t need to feel pressure to update it all the time. Relax.
We have a family blog, but it is not incredibly personal in terms of feelings, poems or anything like that. Not at all, its about things we buy that might be useful to others, about baby stuff that again might be handy for folks, that kind of thing. We even post our recipes.
I have a business blog that gets updated with new projects. Easier than a “real” web site!
I also have a blog where I clip articles that interest me (merely because I got fed up with broken links). That’s easy and occasional. Been doin it fur years, and it’s great fun!
Finally I have a blog of my own opinions and thoughts for no other reason than it stops me posting that sort of thing to the others… and I don’t mean moans, just thoughts on my hobby and interests.
The aim is to share, inform, amuse and entertain. It’s not a religion, (but it can become an addiction).
I started blogging in order to organize and revise poems I had written over the years and thrown into piles of other papers. To get it all in format has been liberating:
“I know it sounds cliched to say it, but blogging is freedom.”