Blogging 101

By: N.L. Belardes

Description: An Art Of Identity, Writing And Social Change or 'How To Get Started and Take Over The World in Cyberspace

Topics: Bakersfield, Instructional, NL Belardes, Bakotopia, Noveltown, blog, How-to, Culture, online, social networking, Blogging 101
Posted by thenovelist Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:01:19 PDT
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Blogging: An Art Of Identity, Writing And Social Change

By thenovelist / NL Belardes

Blogging Is Writing, So Understand Who You Are

Who are you? What is your identity? If you identify yourself as solely a student, housewife, teacher, police officer, etc., then stop reading immediately and go meditate. That’s right, run along and think. Because the words you’re about to read aren’t meant for you. They won’t make a difference in your life unless you identify yourself as a writer. Don’t even think of coming back unless you’ve accepted a very crazy notion whole-heartedly, even fanatically, as if you’ve converted to the wildest, most far-reaching religious faith of all time: writing.

Once you’ve accepted your fate as a writer, you may continue. If I’ve lost anyone at this point, and I often do, then it just wasn’t meant to be. Go back to being an office worker, or whatever it is that you do, because it’s not disheveled enough, not crazy enough, not risky enough as we writers who accept our fate understand. Those who are half-writers, pseudo writers, or wannabes just won’t be able to partake in the full range of staring that we, who identify as writers, get from the gawking world around us.

When it comes to being a writer, or in this case, a blogger, often there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of writing. Yet when it comes to the why I have my own set of rules: you either are a writer, or you aren’t. You either want to learn and grow as a writer, or you’re too pompous to believe your writing can get any better. If you think you can’t get any better, or that your writing is perfect already, let me tell you, you’re stuck.

Maybe you think your words are perfect the first time a paragraph spills out of your head—often a good sign of someone who fears change. Or maybe you’re one of those writers whose belief is in purity, that your words are strangely tainted if you edit them—often a good sign of a pompous writer. Such writers just want reassurance that what they’ve written is some kind of divine godsend. Believe me, these are the kind of people who approach me and say, “Will you look at something I wrote?” I tend to ignore such pompous and fear-of-change types. I give no holy blessing to such snootiness.

I often let out a sigh at this point because I know that most often that person won’t like that I often interpret their meanings as “help.” My red pen marks are cuts to their psyche. Blue pen marks? Deep gouges to their already icy egos. Rather, many such writers are passively suggesting that I help them get published, which I don’t mind doing when the writing is good enough.

So this is the first step to being a blogger: blogging is writing, so understand who you are.

That means although you blog, what you really are is a writer, which means you need to learn and grow as writers do. And maybe that’s wrong of me to suggest. But I figure if I’m still learning and growing as a writer, so should every other writer out there.

Good Bloggers Are Writers Who Adapt And Mature

I accepted early on in my writing career that writing is a life-long learning process. Writing, as you grow older, will change, progress, adapt and mature. Look, we all need editors because not only are we often blind to much of our own writing, but often we writers have growing pains that we’re not even aware of. Sentence structure, voice, clarity and vision in writing evolves through stages of learning, which I believe, are little epiphanies as we come to understand new techniques and develop deeper vocabulary. Look, I could submit this essay to a magazine and entire paragraphs might be chopped, reorganized, clarified. I have to be mature enough to accept editing from others as I do my own editing and artistic growth. Yes, writing is art.

An essay or short story I write today at age 39 is completely different in tone and perspective from my writing twenty years ago. Maybe that’s what makes someone like Tolkien, Orwell or Naipaul so special: they could capture maturity and youth, and achieve an incredible sense of clarity by having allowed the writing processes in them to change and adapt through the construct of time. As they got older I bet they even enjoyed committed editors who worked to help them grow further.

So as you blog, understand that you have at the very least, to self-edit your work. Even though blogging is an immediate form of writing, some degree of editing is necessary. Write a passage, sit back, and edit. New thoughts might flood into your head; stronger arguments could unfold. Believe me, readers aren’t dumb and can sense maturity in writing as if they’re sniffing out the best plate at a five-star Vegas buffet.

The Art Of Concise

Sure, you can learn to edit your blog like the masterful writer that you are. But can you write concise? You ever read blogs that are so long-winded you wonder how many Red Bulls or Ginseng Tea you’re going to need to get through them? I’m guilty of writing such pieces myself. Sometimes long blog voyages are necessary. Usually such ships need to be sunk, because often writers are unnecessarily long-winded.

Here’s an exercise that you can do. I wrote a fiction piece that’s 133 words in length. Now, with each edit the story is reduced down to 100, 50, 25 and 10 words. As you read each edit, ask yourself if the meaning of the story has changed and how? Then ask how much editing you can do to your blogs, yet still retain the original meaning and intention of the piece.

133 Words:
Roger walked up the final flight of stone steps and taped the hand-written note to the yellow door. Where he placed the note, the paper’s end curled against a plastic wreath. Twelve cranberries dotted its holly. Twelve unholy spots of stars in a black universe. Through the window, the tree’s glow of red-blinking lights silhouetted carpet-hungry lovemaking. Roger pushed harder on the note’s tape. He wanted to make sure his treatise was read. He grabbed the handle. Unlocked, he then pushed the door slightly open enough to press the digital camera through. He snapped the photo, a copy soon to be placed in the mail. He would send it back to the very address he knew would reveal a world of Christmas grief, and likely ruin future thoughts of Christmas cheer and merrymaking.

100 Words:

Roger walked up the stone steps and taped the note to the door. The paper curled against a plastic wreath. Twelve cranberries dotted its holly. Through the window, the tree’s glow of red-blinking lights silhouetted carpet-hungry lovemaking. Roger pushed harder on the tape. He then grabbed the door handle. Unlocked, he pushed the door open enough to press the digital camera through. He snapped the photo. A copy would be placed in the mail. He would send it to the very address he knew would reveal a world of Christmas grief, and likely ruin thoughts of Christmas cheer and merrymaking.

50 Words:

Roger taped the note to the door. The paper curled against a plastic wreath. Through the window, red-blinking lights silhouetted lovemaking. Roger pushed the door open enough to press the digital camera through. A copy would be placed in the mail and likely ruin thoughts of Christmas cheer and merrymaking.

25 Words:

Roger taped the note to the door. Lights silhouetted lovemaking. He pushed the door and pressed the digital camera through. He would mail a copy.

10 Words:

Lights silhouetted lovemaking. Through the door he pressed the camera.

Creative Non-Fiction: Topics That Make A Difference

A lot of writers get stuck when trying to think up topics. Topics are usually spur-of-the-minute pieces inflamed by some kind of primal passion to write an opinion that can be instantly published. I think I regret about half of those I ever published. What I’ve also found is that such topics are spurned by people not even caring to make a difference in their community. They just want to be king opinion makers.

Yet I confess I’ve been guilty of such methods when choosing topics. The difference between me a lot of people? I care about community and social change.

A better way to choose a topic, rather than just a writing reactionary piece, is to ponder creative non-fiction choices that can make a difference, instill change, inform, or critically analyze a socio-political community that is in need of being analyzed. When articulated well, which means, writing gracefully, a good writer will begin to discover a writing voice that wells from deep inside their consciousness. That voice is what will attract readers. People will gravitate to you if you become an expert communicator, even through blogs. Sure, writing inflamed blogs about hot topics can grab readers that filter into ‘for’ or ‘against’ categories by the thousands. But your voice may scare people away if too gritty or riotous.

What I think makes for the best kinds of blog articles are just the types of topics that make for engaging creative non-fiction essays. Think in terms of little essays that if all your blog works were strung together, might just make for an interesting non-fiction book.

Creative non-fiction can take many categories, shapes and sizes. Here are a few that you can try: Road trip; exploratory essay; scientific examination; social narrative; urban decay; examining the future; political realism; lists (yes, lists are interesting); marketing and advertising; nature and environment; reviews of theatre, music, art; an examination of self in relation to hot topics; the anxiety and agony of living; self identity in the new Millennium; cultural examinations.

Some of the greatest writers in the world took simple topics and created a world of interest for their readers: O. Henry’s Rolling Stone, Hemingway’s 6-word lit and short stories of travel, historian Samuel Eliot Morrison’s descriptive transitions of history and life, Jack Kerouac’s road epiphanies, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl-thoughts in poetic Americana, V.S. Naipaul’s perfect postcolonial axioms, Paul Theroux’s true railroad moments. The list could easily enter the hundreds.

I could have listed bloggers. But aren’t bloggers just writers? And don’t writers want to emulate leading essayings, poets, journalists and novelists?

I do. Now go write. Your community will change as you do.

Promoting Your Expert Identity As A Writer
There’s one step left to blogging and being good at it, and that’s the marketing side of writing. This idea goes back to the beginning of my essay that pompous writers will get stuck. There are many pompous and fear-of-change writers out there who have the silly notion that sitting on their laurels after having written a great article is the right thing to do.

Wrong.

Great articles deserve great promotion. That’s where today’s age of social networking comes into play: Bakotopia, myspace, facebook, linkedin, editred.com and so forth. Join them, utilize their networking capabilities. Many people think writing and success equals thousands of readers. That’s not actually what’s most important, unless of course you’re writing books. In this case we’re talking blogs, and blogs often revolve around your expert opinion on some non-fiction topic.

Yes, when you write gracefully and can articulate yourself then you are an expert in whatever topic you determine worthy of your voice. What I believe is more important than sheer numbers is getting the experts to read your work. If you really want to be a great writer, then you need to network with the people, blogs, magazines, publishers, writers who represent the same ideologies that your writing puts forth. In turn, they may look at you as an expert; and the next thing you know, you have a career!

So if you write a blog about cooking, network with not just the great cooks from your city, but the world’s great cooks! You’d be surprised who is accessible online these days. If you write a blog about paranormal activities in your town, then find the people who are the major ghost hunters in major cities! And if you write great pieces about social change and the social condition, then by all means, find the movers and shakers in your city who would care to read what you have to say!

Just don’t sit around and think readers are going to break down your door.

So write a great blog, republish it in print, or get excerpts in other blogs or on popular myspace sites. Or just get people who are renowned in various fields to look at your work. Eventually, if your writing is good enough, you’ll evolve into a member of some strange clan of expert writers much like yourself.

And you might even find a day job.

*Originally printed in Bakotopia Magazine, issue 14, 11 - 2 - 07

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