I have been struggling with what to write about on this blog for the last few years. I’ve written about all sorts of random things, more to keep the blog alive, and keep in practice than for anything else. I’d like to change that. I’d like to write something that was as impactful as the Going Paperless series I did for a few years. But so much of what is written today is echoes from elsewhere that it is hard to know what to write about.
Part of my struggle with what to write is that I enjoy reading blogs that are not necessarily centered around one theme. I prefer to read things that are like old newspaper columns, where the subject of the day could be virtually anything that piqued the writer’s fancy on that day. That is what I have tried to do here, although for a while, I’ve restrained myself on this because of the notion that I got in my head that a blog should be focused and not so scattershot. Well, I’m disabusing myself of that notion now, and while I do plan to focus on certain themes from time-to-time, I’m not going to restrain myself from writing about whatever is on my mind, regardless of how mundane it might seem.
I’ve given it some thought, however, and I am going to start by writing something new. I won’t commit to saying it will be a series yet, but it is something that has been on my mind a lot lately: being a writer in a complex digital world. I’ve sketched out at least three posts on this subject, and you can expect to see them shortly. I stopped writing about going paperless because I felt the posts started to become repetitive. Writing about being a writer in a complex digital world might also become repetitive at some point, and I hope I recognize that before repeating myself too often.
Repeating myself is something that I worry about. This blog has been around since 2005, and there are, as of this writing, 6,421 posts. I’ve written about just about everything, and it is hard to remember what I have written before. Sometimes, I’ll get partway through writing a post, and what I write seems familiar. I’ll do a quick search and found that I’ve written about the subject already four or five years ago. If I have something new to add, I’ll recast the post in that light, but more often than not, I find myself repeating things I’ve already written. So part of my goal with my renewed effort here is to touch on some things that I haven’t written about as much. If you do find me repeating myself, cut me a little slack, and know that I am now consciously trying to avoid that.
As always, I am open to suggestions. I didn’t start blogging with a master plan, but over the years, if I have any one goal, it is to write with an eye toward entertaining, to occasionally write about how I do things, with the hope that others might benefit, and to steer clear of the extremes that might generate a lot more traffic, but don’t add much to the conversation. If you have suggestions for things you’d like me to write about, drop them in the comments, or send me an email.
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Blogging in itself, as writing discipline mixed with technology, is an intersection of two topics close to heart. I’ve been struggling with some of these issues myself, like you. Unlike you though, I’ve started and ended probably several blogs at this point.
Most bloggers out there today, if to judge from different communities I’ve visited, are indeed focused on a specific niche. It is not surprising that most bloggers out there today are focused on making a profit and get as many eyeballs on their posts as possible. To me, these are not bloggers. Different tech “blogs” I follow (as it happens to be a topic I’m very involved in) have several writers who start their pieces with boring cliche introductions such as “unless you’ve been living under a rock…” or “here’s the thing about…” which make me skim through it hurriedly to ease my suffering. Your blog is different.
Yours is a personal blog. It is what captures the idea of a blog in my eyes. I don’t find all of your content interesting, and that’s fine. But I do keep following it and see what you’ve been up to because you’re a person. You’re not a “content creator” or, should I say, a “content machine”.
I find that when your life revolves around a specific discipline, the different shades of that discipline finds its way into your posts. I’ve been writing about technology, for example, and that alone lad me through the aspects of privacy, news, and money. I’ve written short opinion pieces of three paragraphs, and I’ve written long how-to posts with detailed images. Lately, I even interviewed someone for a post – the idea just came to me one day on my way to work. My point is if you live it enough, the content finds you, you don’t need to find content.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re going to come up with.