10 Lessons Learned Blogging

The other day I was talking to a friend who was thinking about starting a blog but didn't know if, or where to start. After the chat I was still mulling over some of the lessons I've learned in the last year and a bit of blogging (real practical lessons, mind you, not philosophical epiphanies or lead-in-to-a-joke kind of lessons).


In what follows I defer completely to those who have been doing this longer, but here are some practical rules of thumb I've found helpful.

1. Decide why you're doing it before you do. In my experience, blogging can be a sort of love-hate experience (especially if you're committed to items 2-5 below). The blog, in one sense, is never satisfied. Unlike a paper, or a sermon, or a story, it's never "done," and next week the post you just spent hours crafting will feel kinda stale and you'll have to start all over again. Knowing why I started doing this, after all, helps on those days when it feels it would be easier to just pull the plug.


2. Keep them short. This was a real tough one for me, starting a blog straight out of seminary and all, but the discipline of keeping my blog posts to around 500 words has (I think) improved my writing generally. It's curious, but I find writing a 500 word post harder than a rambling 1100-er. Go figure.

3. Keep it coming. This is a tough one too, but I've found that consistent posting is a really helpful discipline (he says after eight days of silence....); it develps the habit of regular writing, and once you find the groove, it makes the general experience of blogging more pleasant.

4. Plan ahead. Keeping a running list of possible post ideas as they come to you really helps with #3, especially when that computer screen is staring you down, a week since your last post, and you still don't know where to start.

5. Write ahead. This helps a lot with #3, too. I took a couple of weeks a while back and hammered out ten or twelve short back-up posts which I keep on file for those weeks when the well's dry or I don't have much time to put down the bucket.

6. Take breaks. Rather than just letting things peter out, I've tried to take intentional hiatuses (hiatai ?) from blogging when I find my creativity or energy is flagging, setting a specific stop-and-re-start date for myself. The few times I've done this I find I come back blogging with renewed enthusiasm.

7. Use Dropbox. Dropbox is an easy-to-use online file sharing service and about the quickest way I've found to include additional content (files, word documents, pdfs, video games, etc) in your posts. Just put it in your dropbox and then include a link on the blog. Done.

8. Use videos for podcasts. When I started I wanted to embed audio files in some of my posts. Doing some research I discovered this is a lot more tricky than it sounds. I found lots of ways to embed audio using html code, but the problem was it didn't always work, depending on the browser you were using. Often it "forced" the music which is really annoying. And you always needed off-site hosting. The simplest solution I've come up with is to convert my audio to a video file, setting it as the sound track to a blank black screen. You can then upload it simply and cleanly straight to the blog using the "add video" feature, and Blogger's video driver takes care of the rest (because I prefer the way it looks, I go in after and adjust the dimensions of the driver in the html code, just to make it more resemble an audio file).

9. Have regular "features." Another one for the sake of #3. Keeping a few "regular features" (e.g. a "movie of the month," book reviews, etc.) helps you with built in post ideas for when the idea-pickings are scarce.

10. Keep lists. Lists are among the most fun, illuminating and interesting posts to write, especially when it's been eight days or so, and you're still staring blankly at the sceen . (Take my post on the 10 lessons I learned blogging, for instance.)