8. How long do you plan to continue blogging?

As long as I have fun with it or have time with it. The problem with my sort of blogging is that it is not just a run down of the day’s events. I think of it more as an exercise in creative writing. There is a lot of thought in what goes into the posts, including the topic, the humor and or jokes, the images and the related links I provide.

I mean the topics usually have an emotional center and highly edited. I would go through each post, re-writing them several times, most of the time even after I post them. I remember that several weeks ago, I was going through the archives and I happened to see a particular sentence that didn’t sound right and I “fixed” it right there.

Because of the humor aspect of my blog, I may re-work a joke if I have a better idea. A joke is one of the hardest things to write. It has to be written just right for it to kick you right at the funny bone.

Sometimes, I will spend days on a single line and it will really bog me down so I just let it go and post it anyway. Meanwhile, a few days later, it will come to me and I go back and re-write it. Sure, most of my readers will probably not notice, but if I decide to ever use this material for “real” writing, then it is already written out.

I also try to pick out images that I think go along with the post or compliment it or take it to a different level. It is kind of an editorial comment on the post I think. I will google images or manipulate existing ones to fit the post.

Another thing that I also try to do is to find humorous links to attach to words, concepts, feelings in the post. This way, it’s like an unexpected treasure for the reader, not necessarily an explanation of the terms linked. It encourages the reader to explore the posts rather than just read it. I spend a lot of time mining the internet for interesting links that may be tied into my post or could be a surprise link. I guess that most of the time this is lost on the readers, but I don’t know. My site tracker does not give me those kinds of statistics.

And finally, I try to invite comments in my blog by leaving open ended questions, provoking statements or a picture of my pimply ass.


NEXT: The Irony of Blogs