Eons ago somebody fell in love with me, and of course being curious and all that, I asked why. The verdict was that because I was fun to be with. Sure, I was hoping for more earth-shaking reasons such as irresistible good looks, sex appeal, and state of the art brain.
No such luck. But I learned to live with it. It was a good start and we had fun all right.
The same can be said in blogging. If you have fun with your blog, meaning you write things you’re familiar with and have fun with it at the same time, I think you’ve got a winner in your hands. Readers will seek you out although you don’t pass yourself off as a guru.
You can even make the shambles that is your life as a magnet to draw readers to your blog. There’s something to be said about royal screw ups. People read to entertain themselves. And what higher entertainment than to read a guy’s post that points out he’s more miserable than you are.
Maybe it’s the tone of voice you use. Or your quirky sense of humor. Or your extreme lack of humor – that can be funny,too. Add to this the lack of artifice in your writing. You write to share an interesting story even if you appear as the “balahura” (scoundrel). That’s brave, I’d say.
Polished writing helps. Grammatical errors can savage your post such that it can be painful to read – true. But that’s not the whole story. As my feed reader is my witness, I can proudly say that I’m subscribed to a lot of bloggers whose posts are riddled with grammatical mistakes. Over time, these mistakes can be remedied by careful study and industry. Paucity of ideas – this is the hardest challenge to master.
Jonathan Morrow gave very useful tips for bloggers who fear their writing suck . What astounds me in his post, however, was when he said:
You thought blogs were something more noble? Well, maybe they are… to you. To the average person though, they’re simply something to do while they sip their coffee in the morning, unwind before going to bed, or take a break at work. If they didn’t read your blog, they would have to think about how crappy their life is, and that’s unacceptable. So, they turn to something more interesting: you.
Learn to relax. Give yourself permission to goof once in a while. Trust me, it’s a liberating experience.
Over to you now. You can tear at me now for advocating loose writing. That is, if you can find your target. Lol.
