Writing a blog

All over the map

Y from the Yahoo logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I write a weekly blog,” I proclaimed rather boldly while some sport events played on the televisions around us.  “Sunday Night Blog!”
“Really?” my friend questioned.  “What kind of blog?”
“What kind?”
“Yeah, what kind is it?”
I stared back with a rather blank look, I guess.
My friend continued with determination to extract some further information, “What is your theme?”
“Oh!” I said as if I finally understood. “The theme is Twenty ten. It is a typical lay out and you can change the header anytime and add all kinds of cool stuff down the side.”
“No, not the theme. What is your subject? What do you write about? What are your topics?”
The light bulb finally went on, but I did not have a good answer for him. “I write about anything, or everything.  It depends.”
“It depends? What do you me it depends? You have to have a certain type of blog. Do you write about politics? Music? Religion? Sports?” As I did not provide an immediate answer, my friend added, “Something else?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed. “I write about all those things.”
“WHAT!? You can not do that.”
“Why not?”
“No one will ever read a blog like that. You have to find your niche and write for them.”
“Isn’t that a bit like preaching to the choir?” I asked.
“Exactly,” my friend said without a millisecond of hesitation.
“Well, what is the point of that? The choir probably has heard the sermon already. I want to write about the things that interest me each week.”
“No, no, no,” my friend blurted out, almost shouting so I would be convinced. “You have to have a goal for your blog, a higher purpose!”
“I do have a goal,” I insisted. “I wish to finish each week before Sunday night, hence…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said while cutting me off. “Hence, Sunday Night Blog.”
“That’s it,” I said proudly. “I even finished on time for the two Sundays I was out of the country.”
“That doesn’t count,” he reminded me. “You probably wrote those before you left.”
“True.”
“Look, you want to have readers, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you must have a permanent category,” he instructed. “How about music?”
“I don’t go to enough concerts and I do not hear enough new music.”
“What do you listen to in your car?”
“I sing along to the oldies,” I replied with a smirk.
“Oh my god,” he declared rather slowly to add emphasis. “Remind me never to ride with you.”
“Why not?” I laughed.
“Moving on,” he stated in a manner indicating his resolve. “What about entertainment in general?”
“No, I don’t get much entertainment, unless you count your facebook status. They really ought to get spellcheck for that.”
My friend either did not get it or pretended not to, so as not to get sidetracked from his mission to find me a purpose. “What about food?”
“Hot dogs?”
“Nevermind. How about the economy?”
“Too depressing,” I replied.
“Politics?”
“No, everyone will be sick of it by election day.”
“Religion?”
“No, the choir has already heard me sing.”
“Sports?”
“No, everyone I know is into fantasy leagues, not real sports. That’s like reality television, only with beer and chicken wings.”
“Well, how about the media?”
“I could review other blogs.”
“Absolutely not,” he shouted, “you will lose the one or two readers you might have now.”
“I must have more than that,” I insisted. “We can look at the dashboard and find out.”
“Don’t do it. You will be too depressed if you do not find any readers.”
“That’s true.”
“You can not go on like this, however. If you want readers you need a regular topic. You must load up you your articles with the right keywords so they will be picked up by the top search engines. You must choose your categories wisely and add lots of tags. Blast out notices on facebook and twitter, maybe Stumble Upon, Tumblr, Reddit and Pinterest, maybe Google+ and Yahoo.”
“They still have Yahoo?” I said innocently.
“You simply can not be all over the map!” He was finally finished with trying to help me be an internet author. Besides, it was time to get another round and more popcorn.
“But I like being all over the map,” I said rather meekly. “It has provided me with the greatest adventures. My best travel companion and I have always started off with a general destination, but no specifics that stop us from going all over the map. We have the best trips ever.  The blog is sort of the same thing, I think”
My friend glanced back at me with a rather incredulous look.
“Honest! I wished I had lost my sense of direction long ago. It really has helped me find my way.”
My friend just shook his head and grabbed another handful of popcorn.

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