Mary Ulrich left an interesting comment on my last post The Editor Unleashed Guide to Good Blogging. I think her comment gets to the heart of a problem many writers face when it comes to starting a blog, so I wanted to include it here with my response.
Sigh! Sigh! Damn!
Maria, I know it is fear that stops me, but I can’t seem to make it happen. Thanks for your encouragement. I read this and think, OK, I can do this. And then there is great advice from Cheapskate, Sid, Steven and of course Jon the Master.
I guess I need someone to hold my hand through this.
I enjoyed Darren Rowse’s 31 Days to a Better Blog.
How do you choose a name? Maria, I remember you posting the name thread in the Forum for days and there were like a hundred ideas and suggestions. I don’t have anyone to bounce my ideas off.
How do you choose a focus? Just writing? Just life?
Since I am always trying to solve problems, I wonder if we had a protected thread on the forum for new bloggers? With a task for each day.
Or, maybe that is another form of denial and procrastination?
Guess I just need to learn more and get a kick in the butt.
The problem Mary has is probably the most common blogging dilemma. And it’s also the reason many writers either put off starting a blog altogether, or start a blog that lacks a clear focus and soon abandon it.
To find your blog focus, ask yourself these 3 questions:
1. What am I passionate about? What interests me so intensely that I will spend months, maybe even years, reading about it, writing about it and having conversations surrounding it?
2. What subject do I already have some expertise in?
3. Am I interested enough in this topic to continue exploring it on a daily basis for the foreseeable future?
The answer to these three questions will lead you to precisely what the focus of your blog should be.
Focus for Fiction Writers
Granted, it’s more obvious for nonfiction writers to find a focus for their blog. But fiction writers can definitely find a blog focus by exploring the nonfiction issues inherent to their work.
If the novel you’re writing is about a hypnotist, for example, you’ll undoubtedly be doing lots of research about hypnotism. In fact, you’ll likely become an expert on the topic of hypnotism as you write that novel. Share your research, your observations, your questions with your blog readers. This way you’re naturally developing an audience for your book even as you write it, which is exactly what publishers are looking for
I’ll answer Mary’s question about choosing a name/domain for a blog in tomorrow’s post.
Have you experienced a problem developing a focus for your blog? Got tips for other writers having this issue? Please share here.
-Maria Schneider
Flickr photo by ssh
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I blog about my dog because I love dogs, but also because my upcoming book (whose fate is in the hands of my agent) is about dogs. I tried blogging about general dog topics, but found I enjoyed writing more personal experiences and thoughts. Still, I struggle. My dog only does so many interesting things!
I would really like to spend some time focusing my blog in the future and this has been great reading in terms of helping to contemplate how to do this. For now, while my energies are bound up in other areas, I think my blog will continue to be a harvesting point for moments in the day. I don’t think I will ever leave this approach behind totally but I would like to add some variety and structure to it when I am able to settle down my roots more.
I blog because I like to explore and push myself with my own writing. I wrote for so many years because I had to for work. Always polished, always perfect, always politically correct. I’m new at fiction. I have been writing non-fiction for a short while and initially started my blog as a place to feature my non-fiction essays and showcase my work as a freelancer. When I started writing more fiction and short stories I saw my blog as a venue to share my musings with other virtual writer pals I’d found on the web. I don’t have a book burning inside me (yet) and I’m not necessarily looking for a commercial application and outcomes from my blog (yet). In the interim it is a place where I can experiment with genres, plug other writers whose work I like, and serve as a sounding board and place for critique (I do hear from others and get good input). In short at this moment I blog primarily for ME. Maybe some would say I lack focus or it’s too this or not enough that, it is my little oasis and I’m happy with it and don’t try to analyze it too much. I know others here have different objectives for their blogs, but I suspect I’m not alone in my desire to have a discrete little skunk-works just for me and a few pals. I’d advise those who have trepidations and worry about getting things perfect to just jump in, the water is fine.
Good point, and I floundered for years on my blog before figuring this out. Actually I solved my inability to stick to just one focus by having regular “themed” days on my blog. But at least now there’s a rhyme and reason to my madness!
For years my family, and even my son’s teachers, encouraged me to start a blog site. I put it off and put it off because I couldn’t decide what I should blog about. It seemed to me the things I have experience in would be of no interest to anyone; therefore I placed the blogging idea on the back burner. Then, thanks to the forum threads about blogging, I brainstormed and came up with numerous subjects I could blog about. I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. After all, what did I have to lose? I’m amazed at the number of people who have commented, positively, on my blog. This effort has also caused me to be more self-disciplined. Knowing my writing is out there “for all the world to see” gives me that extra little push to write every day, as I should be. My blog can be found at: http://writingwonder.wordpress.com/ . Thank you Maria for the encouragement, and all the great advice!
I chose to blog because I feel I have a unique insight that can bridge two completely separate worlds: college professor and gamer geek. I think I come from a relatively unique background, and because of that, I pretty much just write about things I’m interested in. The nuances and slant of the writing tends to come from my personality, which I think works a lot better than me saying “this is from so-and-so perspective” because it’s more of an organic approach to it.
So far, it seems to have worked well.
For me a blog focus was easy, I have had so many little epiphanies as I read about creative writing or listened to others talking about their work. Many times whilst reading or watching someone’s work I might be heard saying “Oh you sly fox, that’s why you…”
In my writing group I talk about bits in books or observed techniques and I am often surprised by the disinterest of others to study the craft.
So I wanted my blog to be a “Hey guys! Have you seen this about writing?” a fun, peer to peer, we all have a ball and our writing improves on the way, sort of place.
Well that was the plan.
The blog is developing its own life and character; the posts are travelling their own roads and taking me along for the ride. I am connecting with some incredible people who have some wonderful concepts. All of which was not on the list at the start.
I’ll not stop the blog’s own development, the ride is a blast.
You may also want to consider what you want your blog to do. Some people use their blog to inform customers of their services. Others just to communicate with people with a similar interest. And still others let people get a glimpse into their lives.
By deciding on the purpose of your blog it can determine the mood, tone, or voice you will use and how you will try to communicate with the people who read your blog. Trying to get readers to buy your next book is going to have a different focus than a blog that wants to talk about the writing process and technique.
And I guess another part of that is, who do you want to read your blog.
When I first started my blog, it was all over the map. I thought I was focusing on writing, but I had my blog analyzed after a few months and one of the best pieces of advice they had was to focus on a particular thing, and if I was going to writing then I should focus on that.
That advice led to a change of name for the blog and a change to the tag line. I went, “Aha!” Having a focus really allowed me to get where I needed to be.
George
My blog grew naturally out of one of my own obsessions– for years before I actually moved to Israel, I was obsessed with trying to learn how to be Israeli (playing Idan Raichel music in my apartment in the snow, eating hummus), and since I moved to Israel over a year ago, it’s a daily adventure as I bumble through! I also started How To Be Israeli at the perfect time… I’d lived here about 10 months, so I had enough life experiences here stored up to blog about yet I also am still discovering new things every day.
For me it was important that it be personal, yet not TOO personal– and focused. There are times when I want to post about something that isn’t relevant to moving to Israel, but usually I decide not to do so. I tell stories about my life as are relevant to my posts, but I focus on teaching my readers about a different aspect of Israeli culture (ranging from how Israelis mop their floors to hummus recipes to a video of the siren on Holocaust Remembrance Day) each post. My biggest challenge is keeping my posts short. It’s become more and more rewarding, though– yesterday I got almost 200 hits for the first time!
Right now I’m trying to learn from my blog for my writing. I don’t think I’d publish an actual how-to guide to aliyah, but aspects of my blog can feed back into my writing. For example, a lot of readers have told me that they like my voice on the blog– I want to bring that natural voice into my writing! It also gives me daily outlet to practice writing, so I think it can ultimately only help even if I don’t get rich and famous off of it.
One suggestion: blog about something that your family and friends might like to read. While I have many readers I don’t know personally, it’s also rewarding to hear from my aunt, grandparents, mother-in-law, friends, etc. who all read my blog and feel they’re connected to my life because of it. You might also get other readers off of it– my mother loves to give out my blog URL to her friends at synagogue! :) Also, if you don’t mind people you know reading your blog, you can set up Facebook “notes” to automatically import your blog posts, thus growing your readership.
Good luck! I’m enjoying this ride!
Wow! Now the pressure is on.
Thanks Maria, I look forward to all the advice.
RE: How do you choose a name? Maria, I remember you posting the name thread in the Forum for days and there were like a hundred ideas and suggestions. I don’t have anyone to bounce my ideas off.
Like the title of a book (LOVE STORY) anybody can use your blog name on another blog host. Depending on how people find you in the first place, usually as a referral from something someone posted elsewhere, or a tag in post you made, it is good to have a memorable name, such as Anthonys World, or Mary’s World, the URL may read nothing like that.
I have too many blogs now. Let me know if you want to buy any of them, LOL.
Anthony, Re: Naming your blog is a really difficult task. I’m going to post some thoughts on that later today. BTW, I would strongly recommend self-hosting your site to escape the problem of your domain name being registered on other web hosts.
Hmmm. We’re getting into a more-complicated area than simply naming your blog.
I actually do have a web site named http://www.uncletonoose.com/ which, so far, is mostly different than the http://uncletonoose.blogspot.com/ blog.
My earlier point was in reference to MyOwnBlog@Blogspot and MyOwnBlog@Wordpress etc., where you may own one but not the other.
For the years I’ve been blogging, I’ve never looked into switching my blog to my dot-com. Maybe it’s time?
Frankly, I’ve been too cheap (or lazy, or both) to bother registering my other blogs as domain names – if they are even available. Then I’d have to figure how to work the dot-com with the blogspot/wordpress thing….
Writing is suposed to be fun, but blogging can be a real bother.
Now, I need to think more about all this.
If you ask anyone how many blogs I have, probably 99% of people would say just one. Seriously, how many blogs does a person need? Actually, I have eight, but I only post to one regularly. So my advice for starting a blog would be to just start! If you don’t like it, you can delete it, or you can make it invisible to the public. I personally can’t throw away something I’ve written, so two of my blogs (horrible ones) can’t be read by the public. Once you try to write daily on something, it becomes obvious pretty quickly what you’re passionate about. I thought I was passionate about a lot of things, but I realized that there was only one thing that I could write about day after day — and I’ve been writing about it for three years now.
Brim over I agree but I dream the post should have more info then it has.