I Have No Clue, And I Must Blog

[babarnett]

I'm sure a lot of us have been in the situation where you write a blog entry thinking, "This is the bestest, most insightfullest entry I've ever written! Let the deluge of adulatory comments begin!"  And then you post it.  A cricket chirps in response.  Then a spider eats the cricket.

Then, a few days later, you'll quickly shoot off some random post where you're just being a doof, and suddenly people are all "OMG! THIS POST IS AWESOME WITH A SIDE OF AWESOME SAUCE!"  And you're left scratching your head and going, "Um, really?"

I'm at a loss trying to figure out the rhyme and reason behind which posts resonate the most.  In the grander scheme of things, it's not a terribly important issue.  I don't blog because I'm an attention-seeking comment junkie, so I'm certainly not about to lose any sleep over a post that garners two comments vs. a post that garners twenty.  But I also don't want to bore people.

There are a lot of reasons you might be reading this blog.  Maybe you're a friend of mine.  Maybe we met at a workshop or a con or through a writing group.  Maybe you Googled "attention-seeking comment junkie."  Or maybe you just pity me.

Whatever the reason, I'm curious: when it comes to writerly blogs, what types of things do you enjoy reading about most?  Posts about the writer's process?  Tidbits on their works in progress, be it updates or problems or research or excerpts?  General posts on the craft?  What they're reading?  And what sort of things turn you off or put you to sleep or make you want to jab a sharp pencil into your eye?

Comments

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

First and foremost--if you want others to read and comment on your blog, you have to read and comment on others. That's just how it works, partially because if you comment on someone's blog, they're more likely to comment back, and while they're there they decide they might as well check their flist and LOOK! B just commented on my blog and there's an entry on her page! Chain reaction. ;)

I have to say that I've noticed a trend on my own blog: Before Finder came out, I got the most comments on writerly wisdom/conundrums. Now, the posts that garner the most responses are about what's going on in newly-published world.

Oh, and

always help. :)

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the day of the week also plays a role. Weekends are typically very slow. Mondays seem to be innundation days. Tuesday through Friday seem less so.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

OH! And keep it to 500 words or less. That seems to be blog attention span length.

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

And avoid nuance and experiences unlikely to be shared by others :)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Aaaw, but I had a post full of clever inside jokes that only two other people would get all ready to go. ;)

[squirrel-monkey.livejournal.com]

I wasn't talking about inside jokes so much. Shared experiences are the basic currency of LJ interaction, as in "You hate Dickens? ME TOO! And I thought I was the only one!" and "Remember all those terrible people in high school?" Which in practical terms translates that most experiences different from those of a US middle class person tend to be a lot less prominent.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. Sorry I didn't quite process that first time around.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

And yet my most popular blog post (going by page views rather than comments) was a 1,000 word rant. :)

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha! Well there go all my theories out the window!

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

First and foremost--if you want others to read and comment on your blog, you have to read and comment on others.

I totally know that part of the blogging game. But I'm not so worried about the number of comments as I am what types of posts people actually find interesting, whether they comment or not.

And I can't use sparkles. I'd be stealing your sparkle thunder, and that's just wrong. :)

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Comments often mean "interest" but you're right, that's not always the case.

Hmmm...yes, sparkle-theft is wrong. Sorry for suggesting you break such a law. ;)

re:

[(Anonymous)]

Very similar.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

Things I scroll over:
Politics. Politics. Politics.

Long posts with big paragraphs.

"How to write" posts (these are different from "How I write" posts).

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

I tend to scroll over politics too.

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

"How to write" posts (these are different from "How I write" posts).

Yeah, and some more than others. When someone who's published not significantly better published or a significantly better writer than I am starts dictating from on high, I immediately move on. One thing to talk about experience or preferences, another to speak from authority without having any.

[j-cheney.livejournal.com]

True...and 'how to write' is such a varied process that even if they had wise words (which many newbies do) that doesn't mean their process would work for me, so...

[wendigomountain.livejournal.com]

I've found the more friends on LJ I have, the less time I have to read their stuff. Also, with that previous 10 thingy, I can only see ten at a time, which means only about two or three out of the ten that pop up right off the bat are from people I actually communicate with online. The rest are stupid feeds or non-friend info sites that I subscribed to for pretty pictures. So unless I drill down and go back several sets of ten, I'm usually missing out on a whole lot.

Keep posting. I think you have a lot of "OMG this is teh best EVAR" Epic posts. Also, I usually don't comment just to tell someone they are right. :)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

You can actually change the previous 10 thing. If you go into Journal Style, select the "customize your theme" option, and under "display" there's a field to change the number of posts that shows up on your friends page. I much preferred the old 20 posts default, so that's what I changed mine to.

And thanks for the vote of confidence in my epic posts. :)

[jakobdrud.livejournal.com]

What kind of posts do you read?
Wisdom prompts me to say: That depends. And it does, according to mood, current interests, and sometimes that inexplicable 'thing'.

This post, for instance, caught me with the headline. Seemed more whacky than the post, but I kept reading because the post touches on something I've been wondering about myself for the last couple of days (without posting my musings).

Other things that may trigger my reading gene is humor (I always read the comics first in the news paper), breaking news in the f/sf writing world, weird science, and especially questions I hadn't thought of myself. That last one is of course entirely unpredictable to everyone, and so I return to my first answer: That depends.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Ah, the infamous "it depends." Curse us humans and our variable moods and preferences. ;)

[bondo-ba.livejournal.com]

I like the entries related to writing and genre news most. But I'll read just about anything on my flist, LOL.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

So you're a cheap blog date. :p

[bondo-ba.livejournal.com]

Yep, totally easy.

[barry-king.livejournal.com]

I think (hope!) that the era where blogging was the next big thing in journalism or marketing is over. I tend to gloss over entries that are all political commentary or self-promotion and focus on those that relate the writer to life and vice versa.

I see LJ as a kind of cocktail party. Everyone sort of wanders around and has conversations about their lives and their work and what makes them tic or what tics them off.

So, yeah. That.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

I like the cocktail party analogy!

[dqg-neal.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you Googled "attention-seeking comment junkie." "

Now that you posted that, it'll be my next stop when I'm bored today. Just tos ee the results. :)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[musingaloud.livejournal.com]

I usually read all my flist posts, but I do skim over movie and book reviews when they're not authors I'm familiar with, or movies that I want to see.

I guess I'm a voyeur, I like reading about the daily little things in someone's life. The writing advice isn't as interesting to me much anymore, because most of it I've already read, and who knows what one should believe or listen to these days, but I agree writing process posts are more interesting. And yeah, humor and funny stuff. I notice if I try to get philosophical there's less comments, because I mean, really, it's not interacting with the readers much, is it.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about the writing advice stuff. While not a blog, I used to subscribe to The Writer magazine, but after a couple years my reaction to most articles started becoming "I've heard variations on this before."

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

I like variety. Variety is the spice of life. :) Little personal tales in-between the writing topics and process posts are refreshing.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

I like variety too. I sometimes worry with the more personal tales "Does anyone give a crap?", but other times I'm like "It's my blog and I'll be self-indulgent if I want to!"

[hildebabble.livejournal.com]

I get those thoughts all the time.

[writerjenn.livejournal.com]

There's another factor at work: the posts that are very interesting to read don't always lend themselves to a lot of comments. Sometimes I read a really good post and think, "Wow, she covered it; I have nothing to add." And sometimes I'd like to leave a comment but my blog-reading time is rapidly running out, and I must go write.

But I know that mystery around why certain posts get more comments than others!

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, definitely a good factor to mention. I kind of had that in the back of my mind, especially since I often have moments of "I feel like I should comment because this was interesting but I'm not sure what to say," but it never made it into the blog. So thanks!

[jennygordon.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say that it depends on my mood. I always enjoy writerly pondering posts, but I like the occassional short personal post too, as I blog to get to know people and make blogging friends, as well as to learn things.

Thanks for asking the question - as a relative newbie to the blogging thang, it's been interesting to read other people's comments.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Thanks for answering the question. I've been blogging for a few years now, but I still feel like I have no clue what I'm doing half the time. :)

[justinhowe.livejournal.com]

Over this past year I stopped reading my f-list on a regular basis for at least two reasons: a) the list had steadily grown too long and cumbersome; more importantly, b) my new job didn't give me as much time to sit and read at my desk like my old job.

A third reason might be I see LJ and Blogs a bit differently now since FB and Twitter came along. I'm more likely to come into LJ through a cross-posted link as opposed to through logging in and looking at my f-list. (I see Twitter as the most ephemeral, FB being more fixed, and LJ/Blogs being the most fixed like the base of the social media food pyramid).

Things I like:
Seeing what people are reading, watching, and listening to especially if it's stuff I don't know about. Yeah, I'm one of those people.

Pictures, especially of banal day-to-day stuff.

Anecdotes, funny stories.

Life updates.

The things I don't like could probably fill the Grand Canyon... but the notion of a "writerly blog", even in the abstract sense, does make me want to jab a pencil in my eye. I don't mind the occasional writing post, but when every post is about WIP (or worse, FB updates about how many words got written that day), I start to reach for the pencil let alone scroll. Also when blogs become pop-culture echo chambers.

Actually the echo chamber notion is apt since my LJ f-list is more likely to resemble itself in content/scope ("another writing post, another post about some show I don't care about -- or worse can't understand the appeal of") than my FB "friends" (not surprising since everyone I ever met in my life is apparently on FB).

Of course feel free to chalk this up to burgeoning andropause and irritable male syndrome. I try my best not to take myself too seriously, and I certainly don't expect the world to give a damn about what I like/dislike.

And like Erica said variety goes a long way.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't expect the world to give a damn about what I like/dislike.

So I should scrap my plans to rename my blog "Things Justin Howe Likes/Dislikes and Why You Should Give a Damn"?

But seriously, thanks for offering up your perspective!

[shveta-thakrar.livejournal.com]

You know I've wondered, this, too--and then finally given up and just written what I felt like writing about. If people skip the posts, they skip them. *shrug*

But I like to come read whatever you post, so there.

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

You're one of my minions, though, so you're biased. :p

But yeah, if I can deduce anything from all the comments on this post, it's that I should just keep doing what I'm doing.

And ironically, this has become one of my most viewed and commented upon posts. :)

[shveta-thakrar.livejournal.com]

*raises an eyebrow*

I thought you were my minion?

Other than that, yes. :)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and alternate Fridays. Weekends we both get off. But the rest of the time, you're my minion. :p

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

First and foremost, I want to be entertained. If a blogger can make me smile (or better yet, LOL, out loud) while I'm reading, it doesn't really matter what the post is about, I'm with him/her to the end. That said, folks referring to themselves in the third party in anything but a bio make me laugh, but not in a good way.

I like to hear good news (though for me, reviews and wordcounts get old fast). Craft posts are good, especially when there's a different slant to them.

More than anything, I liked to be talked to, rather than talked at, if you know what I mean.

Hope that's useful :)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

Barbara Barnett would like to thank you for your reply. She thinks it was very helpful. :p

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Hehehe :)

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

What jongibbs said.

Also, I don't think there's a rhyme or reason to why some posts take off. Just happens.

Personally, I like reading about what people are up to, research problems, craft epiphanies, that sort of thing...

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

As I suspected, everybody seems to have a mixed bag of preferences (if any at all!). So I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing and hope it's not boring. :)

[jtglover.livejournal.com]

If it's a comfort, I've never yet said to myself, "Self, I think Barbara's LJ is boring." :-)

[babarnett.livejournal.com]

:)