Category: blogging about my blog

How to Not Be Bored With Your Blog

Unless you want to be bored with your blog, in which case, go ‘head.

  • Don’t be half-assed. That will guarantee that you’re not going to write stuff you’ll come back to later. The way to keep creating writing/content/ideas worth your time is to commit to doing your best.
  • Don’t repeat yourself. This seems obvious, but sometimes you’ll get on a tear and want to get something across and you’ll come back to it again and again because you’re obsessed. Even if your blog has a focus — lefty politics, trans rights, etc. etc. keep moving forward and find new angles.
    • This can be a challenge. You’ve got to meet it, though. The world keeps moving. There are new angles coming towards you. Look for them.
  • Care about what you write. If what you’re writing means something to you, that will come across to the reader. Your writing will be more interesting because you’re interested.
  • Know why you’re doing this. Have a sense of mission. Have a goal. That is not to say you have to be single-minded. Side quests are sometimes necessary and rejuvenating. But remember your central point. Remember why you started blogging in the first place, and return to that point whenever you start to feel that sense of mission creep.
    • You can refine that mission over time. Life is a process, and change is the truth. Keep up with those changes in your writing, your interests, and your knowledge.
    • When you change, bring your reader along with you. Disclose. Explain. Empathize. Remember that there are two of you in the equation.
  • Be Honest. NEVER go along to get along. Never give in to “audience capture.” This is part of being committed to a project. Have enough faith in what you’re about to be willing to risk shrinking your audience in the short run. Tell the truth, and keep that personal truth at the center of your project.
  • Keep Blogland Weird. Embrace idiosyncracy. Revel in quirkiness. Be you. Have fun.

about my music reviews

This is a perblog, obvs., so it follows that my approach to music reviews would be quirky. I don’t pretend to encyclopedic knowledge I don’t have, but where I do have knowledge or lore to share, I’ll probably include it.

That said, I make a distinction between the object in my hand and the band it represents. I don’t know these bands, most of them I haven’t and never will see live, so my relationship is with the chunk of vinyl, the CD or the streaming digital file. That’s what I review.

taking a short break

I’ll be back next week.

I’m in the middle of three book projects, yet I have made the time to post here every week for the last few months. I’ll continue to do this, but this week, I need to prioritize a different project.

Multitasking is really not my thing, but I appear to be doing it. How well I’m doing it is another question entirely. Y’all will be the judge, come the time.

A Post You Can Scroll On By If You’re Scrolling Down My Blog’s Timeline

This is me figuring some things out.

This is one of those meta posts. Yes, I’m taking up space here to do some “out-loud” thinking about what I want to do here. Sorry! Bear with me (if you’re out there at all) and I promise next week will be better.

That’s where I want to start I guess. I’m trying to be more consistent about this thing. I mean to start posting dependably every Tuesday. This will be my fourth Tuesday in a row, so it seems like this may actually happen. It’s also true that early in this blog’s history, I did a couple of “seasons” – three-month periods where I consistently posted every Tuesday. Unsurprisingly, I had more views then and even had a couple of posts that drew a small amount of attention.

I was never very deliberate about what I posted in those days. My intent was simply to keep writing. I had just come out of an MFA program with a “Creative Nonfiction” degree and was trying to work towards… something. I know not what, at this point, but someting. In the years since, I have managed to keep writing, but not always here on this blog. You can look at my “About Diane” page and see a few things that have appeared in other publications.

But most of what I’ve done is not published, except for what’s on this checkered and not-very-directed blog, and a metric tonne of social media posting. I have a novel in the works, a novella, and I’ve just decided to self-publish a chapbook of mixed essays and fiction sometime this coming year. It has become time to devote a bit more energy to this thing and see what I can actually accomplish.

That’s the backstory. So what’s next? I think an important next step for me is to build some sort of constituency. I haven’t tried very hard to do that, but I do know it to be possible. It’s time to make some stuff happen. The question is: how?

I think this blog needs to stand on its own. I need to post consistently. I’m doing that much and will continue to. This is my first line of “offense”, if you will, and my sincere hope is to post things that will be of interest. Scrolling back through my previous posts of late, I see that I have developed a pattern: I review albums and try to contextualize my thoughts around whatever music I’m posting about with thoughts from my life and from the world as I see it. I also do much the same thing without the music; see my “Zeitgeist” posts.

What that indicates to me is that I orient towards cultural commentary. You may be surprised to find that I am still looking for indications. I chalk that up to a lack of conscious planning about what I mean to say when I come here to put down some thoughts. You could say that this is more of an observation than a deliberate choice, but I’m fine with the diagnosis.

Essentially, this is what they used to call a “perblog” or Personal Blog. For me, this will almost always be pointed outward at the world, but it will definitely come from a point of view somewhere between these two slightly-ringing ears and a little bit behind these two hazel eyes. A broadcast from my personal brain radio, if you will.

I hope you will tune in from time to time. I’ll try to make it interesting. Please like, subscribe, and if you’re feeling generous, leave a comment!