A Thousand Blog Posts

I searched through my email last night and realized that I have been writing on the internet since 2005.  At least, that is the farthest back I can trace.  DiverseFi is actually my third blog.  The first, the companion to a website selling art work, was fairly short lived.  The second, a blog about medicine and life, still exists today.  Recently I wrote a Good Decision/Bad Decision post about writing a blog.  This post will talk a little bit about what I have learned.  Believe it or not, I have written and published over a thousand blog posts in my lifetime.  Each post usually ranges from 500-750 words.  That’s 750,000 words people!

After thirteen years and countless topics, I guess I have learned a few things about myself, writing, and social media.

Sit back.  Relax.  I have a few hundred more words on the subject.

Neither Subscribers nor Followers, Friends

Ask any recent blog creator, there is much energy spent building a subscriber list or coaxing followers on social media.  This is the life blood of any platform.  No matter how good your content is, it is fairly unsatisfying if no one reads it.

So much time will be spent offering freebies and building an audience.  There is value here.  You want to create an inviting and comfortable space for your readers to lounge and enjoy themselves.

And this works.  For the most part.

Long term, however, the bells and whistles fade.  No one ever stayed with a blog after years because of a giveaway.  The people who stick with you, who churn through a thousand blog posts, will be neither subscribers nor followers, they will be friends.  They will buy into you, not some fantastic blog post or another.

They will be particularly curious about your life and thoughts, and enjoy interacting and reading your responses to their comments.  Although you might never have met in real life, you will be friends through and through.

The Well Does Not Run Dry

When you first start writing a blog, you will fear that the material will dry up.  The first ten posts are filled with your best thoughts and ideas.  But what happens when you vomit all that out?  Will you have the stamina to continue writing publicly?

In my case at least, I found that if I could make it through the first fifty posts or so, I would never stop.  Writing is a habit.  There is so much going on in the world around us.  Whether it be finances, medicine, politics, or whatever.  There are a thousand little moments each day that spark a thought.  The experienced blogger collects these, files them away, and calls them up when it’s time to write.

You will become a great watcher of life events.

That Viral Moment Will Likely Never Happen

Maybe its just me.  But nothing I have written has ever caught fire.  Oh well!  So is life.

In fact, I cannot tell you how many times I have written a juicy post filled with my best material, and watched it sputter after publication.  Maybe it just wasn’t as good as I thought it was.  Or I hit the publish button on the wrong day or in the wrong hour.  Ever hastily pushed a stellar post on Christmas morning or New Year’s Eve?  Yep, no one’s reading!

Conversely, the blogs you feel are completely useless, will strike a chord with someone.  Possibly many people. It appears that the internet and I often disagree about the voracity of some of my posts.  It’s usually a lovely surprise.

I Write Badly!

I have horrible grammar.  Use commas indiscriminately.  Mispell Misspell words.  And f-up there, their, and they’re all the time.

I have been called out on Facebook, Twitter, and worst of all in my blog comments section,  I have been told in no uncertain terms:

If you can’t spell, get off the internet!

At first this hurt my feelings.  Then it made me angry.  Now I am indifferent.  On my other blog, I even wrote a few blog posts about it.  Those posts got a huge viewership.  Ironic, don’t you think?

Writing Is About Ego

You write for yourself.  Admit it.  We all do.  You have to be somewhat self involved to write a thousand blog posts.  I accept this.  Embrace it even.  My blogs are a thought laboratory in which to ply my most burning experiments.  Most of them fizzle out.  Some produce results that astonish me.  Either way, I am often surprised by the outcome.

The friendships, accolades, and even money that is made by blogging, are happy side effects.

If you are in it solely for those reasons, your stamina will be greatly tested.

Final Thoughts

Writing a blog is a marathon.  Pace yourself.  Make friends. Don’t worry about finding content, it will find you.  Let go of your hopes of going viral, and don’t forget to check your grammar one last time before hitting publish.

Oh, and one last thing.  Don’t forget to be authentic!