Blogging: Purpose, Focus, and Value to Readers

So, what is this blog about? I admit that if I look at my list of recent posts, it’s all over the place. I see posts about writing, memoir, flash fiction, personal challenges, social justice themes, politics. In short, I see a recipe for mental fragmentation and confusion. I am grateful for those readers who have stuck with me through my faltering steps on the blogging pathway, but as the time approaches for New Year’s resolutions, it’s clear I need to bring some focus to this site.

As with any endeavor, it is important to learn from the masters. One go-to resource I use is Jane Friedman, whose blog and newsletter helps “authors and publishers make smart decisions in the digital age.” Jane, a Great Courses professor and contributor to Publishers Weekly and other outlets, has created a blog and website brimming with resources for writers, with links to her publications, classes, and related services. It was Jane’s webinar on WordPress that gave me the confidence to move beyond my first Google Blogspot blog, Memoir Crafter.

Through Jane, I have found other outstanding websites. Most recently, I followed a link in her post from October, “What Should Authors Blog About” that took me to writer, traveler, and unconventional living guru Chris Gillebeau’s blogging guide and manifesto, “279 Days to Overnight Success.” According to the statement on the manifesto page, Gillebeau’s blog is for “Bloggers, writers, online artists, and anyone otherwise interested in creating a new career or expanding their influence using social media.”  What the manifesto immediately did for me is get me thinking about the purpose of my blog and the possibility of threading the topics that are important to me into one cohesive theme. And if you are just starting out with a blog, his post on how to start one is one of the most succinct I’ve seen.

Another useful resource comes in the way of the bloggers and writers I follow regularly, those, for example, whose blogs support writers through the Literary Citizenship Model that Jane discusses in one of her posts. I follow several that are true to the goal of “celebrating and bringing attention to authors, writing, and books—the things you presumably love and want to support”:

Then there are author blogs. Among some I follow are:

And finally, the plethora of writing sites with blogs, such as:

These are just a handful of course, and I’m sure you all follow well-written blogs on topics other than writing that, despite their unique angles, convey a clearly recognizable theme and fulfill their purpose in giving readers useful and timely information. One blogger I follow that participates in the Carrot Ranch flash fiction challenges is early-childhood-educator Norah Colvin. Norah stays true to her purpose of inviting early childhood educators to support children’s learning through the use of her original teaching materials. Most recently, she is using her blog to launch Readilearn, a website that offers early childhood teaching resources.

So, it’s back to the drawing board for me. With today’s post, I plan to return to my original purpose and themes in blogging here. Those include topics related to memory and memoir writing; the craft of writing; and Word of the Week, exploring arcane and beautiful words. I’ll explore flash memoir through Charli Mills’s flash fiction challenges. And I’ll weave in two values in my philosophy of life—the pursuit of EXCELLENCE and the importance of HABIT—as they relate to the craft of writing.

If you blog, what have been your experiences in developing your online identity and themes? Have you found ways to incorporate seemingly unrelated topics into your posts without sacrificing focus?

 

Testing the WordPress Waters

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I’ve finally taken the plunge into WordPress. What pushed me off the cliff? It was a flash fiction piece I posted on Charli Mills’s Carrot Ranch site recently.

Charli invites her community of “Rough Writers” to compose on and post links to their own websites rather than create the flash in the comment section, but having grown frustrated with my Memoir Crafter blog, I have been posting my flashes in Charli’s comment box for weeks now.  When I included (in addition to an opening comment and a title) a quote at the top of yesterday’s flash piece, then notes at the bottom on certain subtleties relevant to the flash, my post unrolled down the page like an endless Asian scroll. The time to migrate over to WordPress had come.

I had put off this day for months. All those fears of being too tech-challenged; too undisciplined to ratchet up my writing practice; too time-squeezed to do it right. All excuses of course. I was simply loathe to park my bottom in the chair and work my way through those first mists of confusion. (Do I go WordPress.org or WordPress.com? Which host do I use if I opt for the .org? What about the theme? The plug-ins? Etc. Etc. Etc.) Thankfully, a review of a webinar I had taken some months back by writer and digital-age-publishing guru Jane Friedman provided the impetus and confidence I needed.

So, as of 4:30 PM MST on tax day, 2015, I am jeannelombardo.com. I am sure I’ll be riding this learning curve for some weeks, and making many changes, but I am happy to finally test the waters. And I am excited at the prospect of developing both my writing and my writing services on this highly regarded platform. Would love to hear anecdotes of your early experience with WordPress and how you made it work for you!