Guest Post: The Art of Getting Read
Attention AOGB shoppers! This is currently the last guest post slated for guest post Thursdays. If you like this feature and want it to continue, please consider donating a new or old post of your own. I can't offer you a beautiful tote bag, but I can offer you my appreciation.
Today's guest post comes to us courtesy of Swan Shadow. I love Swan Shadow's blog because he always has something interesting and refreshing to say. I just don't understand why more of you aren't reading. He also, incidentally, writes obituary tributes that are to die for.
Like most bloggers, I enjoy reading other people's blogs. Let me clarify that: I enjoy reading some other people's blogs. The vast majority of blogs do not interest me, particularly, which is a good thing - otherwise, I'd blow more precious hours reading the doggoned things than I already do.
That I enjoy The Art of Getting By should be obvious, given that I'm guest-posting here. Janet's blog occupies that lofty position in my space-time continuum where my daily must-read blogs reside. It's an exclusive club - tough to get into, and with scant few members.
Now, you be already be asking yourself:"
First and foremost, you really should not care whether I frequent your blog. Or whether anyone else does, for that matter, unless your specific purpose in blogging is to keep in touch with family members, loved ones, and/or friends - in which case, you should only care whether those specific people frequent your blog. If, however, you are not targeting your blog for a select audience, whose members presumably are already interested in you and therefore will visit your blog regardless of its content, you should blog for your own amusement / entertainment/catharsis /whatever, and to blue blazes with what anyone else thinks about it. Get some self-esteem about you, friend.
That said, here's a five-point strategy to get SwanShadow to read, and perhaps even enjoy, your blog every day, or at least for more than half a minute.
1. Learn how to write, and use the skills you learn. Maybe it's because I use words for a living, maybe it's because language and the verbal arts are one of my highest passions, or maybe it's just because I'm an anal-retentive, persnickety nitpicker. Whatever the reason, if your blog reads like an illiterate third-grader composed it, I'm out of there.
Run your posts through spell-check, at the bare minimum. Write in complete sentences unless there's a clear stylistic reason to the contrary. Don't pretend you're e.e. cummings - capitalize the letters that require capitalization, and don't capitalize the ones that don't. Learn where the punctuation goes, and put it there. Learn when to use, and not use, apostrophes, especially in the words "its" and "it's" (which, contrary to increasingly popular usage, are not interchangeable). Divide complete thoughts into paragraphs. In other words, pretend I'm your high school English teacher, and my grade will either get your blog into Stanford, or condemn it to community college.
2. In the words of sports talk host Jim Rome, "Have a take, and do not suck." Far be it from me to tell you what to blog about. Blog about what pleases you — I'm interested in many things, and even if I'm not especially interested in your topic of choice when I arrive at your blog, I may very well hang around if you have something original and intriguing to say about whatever it is.
So tell me something I don't know. Put a novel spin on something I do know. Form an opinion, and express it cogently and with flair. I'll be all ears. By the way, you don't get points just by posting links to other people's content. Link away, but add something fresh. Share a thought. Have a take. Grow some funk of your own.
3. Don't hate. If you really don't like something, say so, but say so in a respectful way. You can make all the snide japes you want about "the other side" and whoever happens to occupy it - I'll laugh if you're funny, even if I'm on "the other side." But I'll weary of a constant barrage of bashing, even if I staunchly oppose whatever the bashees represent. They may be evil incarnate, but I'm more interested in your alternative perspective than in unadulterated vitriol.
The quickest way to lose my interest is to convince me that you're elevating your own impoverished self-worth by standing on the heads of people you detest, or with whom you disagree. Bigotry of any variety arises from an inferiority complex. Display your shattered ego outside my field of vision.
4. Go easy on the profanity, will ya? I'm not a prude -okay, maybe I'm a bit of a prude - but I've heard all the four-, seven- and twelve-letter words you can muster. Trust me, you don't know any curse words I've never encountered. Seriously. I've heard people insult each other on three continents. Your constant use of vulgarisms, however, will soon persuade me that you can't communicate any other way.
Invest in a thesaurus. Clip and save the vocabulary quizzes in Reader's Digest. Find new ways to express yourself that don't make you look like you're wading in the shallow end of the genetic pool.
5. Use a decent template. That doesn't mean mind-blowingly artistic - it means legible. I really don't care how fancy your blog is. I just want to be able to read what you've written. If it hurts my eyes to look at your neon green, calligraphy script body text against your fluorescent pink Barbie-and-Skipper background, you could be the second coming of F. Scott Fitzgerald and I'll never know. I'm off to find my Visine. And for pity's sake, lay off the cutesy flashing animated graphics. We're all adults here.
That's it. Do the above, and I'll be glad to check you out. If I find something worthy of comment, I'll drop you a note. Convince me you'll be interesting more than once, and I might even add you to my blogroll. You'll be the envy of all your blogging friends.
Oh, one more thing. Mommy bloggers (some of you dads are guilty of this too), if I have to scroll through fifty photos of your adorable little moppet(s), please tell me something unique about little Mitzi or Perseus that I can't discern from the pictures. I have a daughter myself, so I know a cute kid when I see one. But tell me why yours is/are special.
Otherwise, color me not caring.
Today's guest post comes to us courtesy of Swan Shadow. I love Swan Shadow's blog because he always has something interesting and refreshing to say. I just don't understand why more of you aren't reading. He also, incidentally, writes obituary tributes that are to die for.
Like most bloggers, I enjoy reading other people's blogs. Let me clarify that: I enjoy reading some other people's blogs. The vast majority of blogs do not interest me, particularly, which is a good thing - otherwise, I'd blow more precious hours reading the doggoned things than I already do.
That I enjoy The Art of Getting By should be obvious, given that I'm guest-posting here. Janet's blog occupies that lofty position in my space-time continuum where my daily must-read blogs reside. It's an exclusive club - tough to get into, and with scant few members.
Now, you be already be asking yourself:"
How could I entice the SwanShadow guy into perusing my blog every day, as he does Janet's? I'm a fun, witty, and charming blogger too, dangit!"I, being an accommodating sort, am delighted to share the keys to the Magic Kingdom (or at least, the keys to my criminally brief attention span) with you.
First and foremost, you really should not care whether I frequent your blog. Or whether anyone else does, for that matter, unless your specific purpose in blogging is to keep in touch with family members, loved ones, and/or friends - in which case, you should only care whether those specific people frequent your blog. If, however, you are not targeting your blog for a select audience, whose members presumably are already interested in you and therefore will visit your blog regardless of its content, you should blog for your own amusement / entertainment/catharsis /whatever, and to blue blazes with what anyone else thinks about it. Get some self-esteem about you, friend.
That said, here's a five-point strategy to get SwanShadow to read, and perhaps even enjoy, your blog every day, or at least for more than half a minute.
1. Learn how to write, and use the skills you learn. Maybe it's because I use words for a living, maybe it's because language and the verbal arts are one of my highest passions, or maybe it's just because I'm an anal-retentive, persnickety nitpicker. Whatever the reason, if your blog reads like an illiterate third-grader composed it, I'm out of there.
Run your posts through spell-check, at the bare minimum. Write in complete sentences unless there's a clear stylistic reason to the contrary. Don't pretend you're e.e. cummings - capitalize the letters that require capitalization, and don't capitalize the ones that don't. Learn where the punctuation goes, and put it there. Learn when to use, and not use, apostrophes, especially in the words "its" and "it's" (which, contrary to increasingly popular usage, are not interchangeable). Divide complete thoughts into paragraphs. In other words, pretend I'm your high school English teacher, and my grade will either get your blog into Stanford, or condemn it to community college.
2. In the words of sports talk host Jim Rome, "Have a take, and do not suck." Far be it from me to tell you what to blog about. Blog about what pleases you — I'm interested in many things, and even if I'm not especially interested in your topic of choice when I arrive at your blog, I may very well hang around if you have something original and intriguing to say about whatever it is.
So tell me something I don't know. Put a novel spin on something I do know. Form an opinion, and express it cogently and with flair. I'll be all ears. By the way, you don't get points just by posting links to other people's content. Link away, but add something fresh. Share a thought. Have a take. Grow some funk of your own.
3. Don't hate. If you really don't like something, say so, but say so in a respectful way. You can make all the snide japes you want about "the other side" and whoever happens to occupy it - I'll laugh if you're funny, even if I'm on "the other side." But I'll weary of a constant barrage of bashing, even if I staunchly oppose whatever the bashees represent. They may be evil incarnate, but I'm more interested in your alternative perspective than in unadulterated vitriol.
The quickest way to lose my interest is to convince me that you're elevating your own impoverished self-worth by standing on the heads of people you detest, or with whom you disagree. Bigotry of any variety arises from an inferiority complex. Display your shattered ego outside my field of vision.
4. Go easy on the profanity, will ya? I'm not a prude -okay, maybe I'm a bit of a prude - but I've heard all the four-, seven- and twelve-letter words you can muster. Trust me, you don't know any curse words I've never encountered. Seriously. I've heard people insult each other on three continents. Your constant use of vulgarisms, however, will soon persuade me that you can't communicate any other way.
Invest in a thesaurus. Clip and save the vocabulary quizzes in Reader's Digest. Find new ways to express yourself that don't make you look like you're wading in the shallow end of the genetic pool.
5. Use a decent template. That doesn't mean mind-blowingly artistic - it means legible. I really don't care how fancy your blog is. I just want to be able to read what you've written. If it hurts my eyes to look at your neon green, calligraphy script body text against your fluorescent pink Barbie-and-Skipper background, you could be the second coming of F. Scott Fitzgerald and I'll never know. I'm off to find my Visine. And for pity's sake, lay off the cutesy flashing animated graphics. We're all adults here.
That's it. Do the above, and I'll be glad to check you out. If I find something worthy of comment, I'll drop you a note. Convince me you'll be interesting more than once, and I might even add you to my blogroll. You'll be the envy of all your blogging friends.
Oh, one more thing. Mommy bloggers (some of you dads are guilty of this too), if I have to scroll through fifty photos of your adorable little moppet(s), please tell me something unique about little Mitzi or Perseus that I can't discern from the pictures. I have a daughter myself, so I know a cute kid when I see one. But tell me why yours is/are special.
Otherwise, color me not caring.
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