Is it possible to deal with a topic in depth in a single blog post and still be read by a substantial number of people on a blog platform? Or is a blog post meant to be short, striking, entertaining for a moment, even intriguing, merely pointing to something more extensive and detailed? Is it meant to just keep people updated, a “Hello! I’m here” as opposed to “Hey! I’m here to visit and here’s my luggage. I plan to settle in for a while.”
Continue reading Short blog posts or long ones?
Category Archives: Blogging Dilemmas
Should you write about everything?
There is a time to write and there is a time to stay silent. To not write. And there are times when writing does not come.
No, I am not talking about writer’s block. I am talking about events in a person’s life that leave a deep impact. Pain that lies too deep for tears and emotion that lies too deep for words.
Know what I am talking about?
Certainly there are blogs out there that chronicle pain and love and other emotions as they come everyday. The blog is a form especially suited for such an outlet.
But at the same time, good writing is “emotion recollected in tranquility” for many of us. Noting experience down in the heat of the moment often distorts the shape of what lies deep in our hearts on the mirror of our page, desecrates what seems to be pure, exposes to interpretation and reception and distorts what must not be interfered with. Continue reading Should you write about everything?
Coming up with something clever to say
I’ve been trying to come up with something clever to say for a while. Something that will make readers either go “Wow! Why didn’t I think of that!” or “I’ve always thought of that but Bottledworder said it first. Shucks! ”
In case you didn’t figure it out yet, I’ve been trying my best to be smart, funny and presentable all this while. Sometimes presentable light. Sometimes presentable intense. Sometimes presentable knowledgeable.
If I was a natural, this would be easy. But as you’ve also probably figured out by now, the presentability slips frequently for I am none of the above in reality. So obviously, I’ve had to think a lot and think hard about being clever.
But instead of my words coming out witty or funny or intense or heavy or whatever it is that I am, I was staring at a bit of a blank page. Like the frog that had seen the fly on the big leaf in the garden. Waiting. A long time. (Is there a story like that? An Aesop’s fable? If not, there ought to be.)
When the blank page wouldn’t go away, I blinked and started thinking about the nature of being clever itself. In a a blog post.
Continue reading Coming up with something clever to say
The long and the short of blogs
It’s a rare day when you can sit down for a nice long blog. To read. More so, to write. Continue reading The long and the short of blogs
Blogging: Quality vs. Quantity
The challenge:
Have you ever scrolled through what seemed like a million blogs before you managed to come up with one that seemed worth reading? Have your various feeds been bombarded with numerous posts so that you have wondered if you needed to “unfollow” or “unfriend” someone while the whole time being aware of an uncomfortable feeling that you might be missing out on a few good posts by removing the blogger completely from your feed?
There are bloggers who post too much. We simply don’t feel like seeing them again. And there are bloggers who post too little. They get buried in the avalanche of the prolific post-ers.
It’s not the blogger’s fault. My limited experience with blogging has revealed an inherent contradiction embedded in the very genre of the blog .
Continue reading Blogging: Quality vs. Quantity
The Blogger’s Fairytale
Have you ever been in a situation from which you cannot see a way out? Sort of like Cinderella cleaning chimney soot and cleaning chimney soot and cleaning chimney soot all day waiting for either the fairy godmother or prince charming or least of all one of the seven dwarfs to materialize out of thin air?
None of the seven dwarfs arrive of course because you’ve mixed up stories. You are left staring at your sooty hands, thinking of all the chimney cleanings the next day, and the next day, and the next day. Besides, every time you’re done cleaning you have the wicked stepmom come over and take credit for the shiny grate and the spotless floor.
Continue reading The Blogger’s Fairytale
How to blog or not to blog that is the question
There are many ways that people seem to be using the medium of blogging. What I’ve been attracted to here is mostly the more creative and reflective blogs. By looking at them, I’ve learnt from what different folks have been trying to achieve through blogging. (In what follows, I’m not thinking of the informative, expository kind of blogs.)
For me, this is mainly an exercise in self-exploration to see where I might go with blogging myself. Looking at what other people are doing is a great way to learn and increase the possibilities of my own blog.
Continue reading How to blog or not to blog that is the question
Writing my blog persona or brand
So for the past six weeks or so, I’ve been trying to figure out my blog persona.
I know a lot of you will clamour–just be yourself! Sure, I would’ve been myself but it’s just so hard to figure out what that self is. I’ve been looking, I can assure you. No doubt, I’ve been irritating a lot of folks, first, by promising to be a rather lightly heavy handed blogger (you’ll know what I mean if you see an older post), and then an overly easy one, becoming one of those people who are always able to think discretely: 10 ways to do this, 5 ways to do that (sort of like God who just managed to create the world in 7 days).
I’ve tried to be funny too in several posts, rather sad in others, and quite inspiredly emotional in some, the sort of purple prose that went out of fashion with the Victorians (ones you can experiment with only as Mr. or Ms. Bottledworder).
But will the bottle get out of shape with too many of us/ me’s? Continue reading Writing my blog persona or brand
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