Blogathon, Day 20: My 6 Rules For Blogging

After some years as a blogger I think I've created myself some kind of rules of blogging. I guess there's nothing exceptional in my list. These are just things that I've found most important to keep blogging enjoyable.

1. Be yourself. Write in a way that's natural for you. Don't use words that you wouldn't use in real life. Keep your own style, whatever it is. I have unsucceeded massively when I've tried to write somehow "fancier".

2. It's good to have a plan for your blogging - but it's not necessary. I blog when I feel like blogging. Works for me.

3. Use photos. Small thing, huge effect. This is the rule I unfortunately break most often.

4. Best posts are written fast and in flow. It's funny, sometimes writing even a pretty long post can take just a few minutes. You have everything ready in your mind. These posts usually don't need very many re-reads (of course it's good to check typos).

5. When you're having the flow moment, enjoy it, write many posts and schedule them to be published later. I do this a lot. I'm a mother of two little kids and I never know when I'm going to have a peaceful moment for writing. When I eventually get it, I try to write as many posts as possible. Most of my posts (this included) are written between 9 - 11 PM when I'm waiting for my kids to fall asleep.

6. Have your notebook, pen and/or smart phone available everywhere you go. Blogging ideas don't ask for time or place. Do yourself a favor - write them down.

Blogathon, Day 8: My Love And Hate Affair With Texts With Lists

When I lived in California I really understood it: Americans love lists.

You know what I mean:

10 Ways To Get Perfect Gluteus Maximus For Summer 
7 Bullet-Proof Ways To Get Stinking Rich 
6 Reasons Why You Should Never Have Kids 

I must admit that I've never been great fan of lists. For me, it seems that the writer of a list is lazy. It is so much easier to make a list than a coherent longer text.

In Estonia, very many newspaper articles are written in question and answer format. It seriously annoys me. Does the journalist think that his/her questions are oh-so-clever that he/she just needs to get them on the paper? What do they study at the journalism school? You can always push the record button on your iPhone and then literate the interview into ink. Not much journalism and editing skills needed, huh? Are these guys able to write a normal piece of news with a beginning and an end?

But as always, I've needed to take a re-look at my own opinions.

Lists are practical. They are easy and fast to read. They suit extremely well for blog posts. Hell, I've even started to write posts with lists myself. By bookmarking well-written posts with good lists you can easily collect yourself a handbook of a topic that interests you.

I also try to think that even if all the blog posts in the world would be with lists, there will still be novels, short stories and other kind of longer texts. I keep telling myself it's great that there are different discourses.

The most important thing is that the reader enjoys the text and finds it useful. Nothing else matters. If it comes with a little help from a list I just try to keep my mouth shut.