Blogging Along

One of the seminars at the recent writers conference I attended was Jeff Edmondson's class on "Blogging for Christian Writers." It's been more than three years since I gingerly entered the blogosphere, and it was good to finally hear a real live person speak about the benefits of blogging.

I have to admit, I already knew a lot of what he said, but he reminded me of some important things and taught me some new things.

Jeff reminded me that effective blogging means regular posting. He believes once a week is the minimum and suggests three times per week. So I'm going on record here to state that I will try to blog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Of course, that won't happen when I'm traveling for business, or during a holiday week, or when my grandson visits, or when I'm scheduled to appear on Oprah.

Jeff also reminded me that a blog entry ought to contain worthwhile information, which I've always known is more effective than mere ramblings or sheer rants. But it can be difficult to produce something worthy on a frequent basis. I will attempt to maintain the stellar character of postings that my many faithful readers have come to know and appreciate; however, if I'm going to be posting more often, I would appreciate my many faithful readers cutting me some slack.

Some of the new things I learned in Jeff's seminar were tips for publicizing a blog and making it more visible to search engines. I haven't yet figured out how to implement all of these, but I'm working on it. If any of my many faithful readers are so moved, please feel free to link my blog to your blogs, to your websites, or to your bank accounts.

Thinking about my blog and how I use it has made me re-evaluate why I forced myself to overcome my initial reluctance and enter the blogging realm. That reluctance was based on intimidation as well as presumption.

I was intimidated by the many existing blogs written by extremely intelligent and articulate writers. I also felt that creating a blog was incredibly presumptuous; it presumed that someone, somewhere, would be interested enough in what I had to say to bother visiting my blog and actually reading it.

I was able to overcome my blogging reluctance because I wanted to put thumbscrews into my commitment to write regularly. And I hoped that writing for an audience would give my regular writing more value than private journaling that often tends to degenerate into self-pitying litanies. I try to journal daily, and that journaling often generates a blog entry.

Thanks to Jeff's reminders and instruction, I will be trying to generate blog entries a little more often. I will be more aggressive in promoting my blog. Since people don't spend much time reading blogs, I will keep my entries short.

Thanks to the many faithful readers for sticking with Ascribelog these three years and welcome to the many new readers. Please feel free to introduce yourself in a comment!