Comments on: What to Blog/Write About

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:37:09 +0000

Thanks for the compliment Tom. I’m sure it would be an honor to be a guest poster in your extensive “blog”.
Err…What does this involve?
BW

Nick

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:08:57 +0000

Nick, your comments are thought-provoking and you have a good point. I write for the sense of fulfillment that it brings me, so in this respect, it’s somewhat selfish. I have been reading more books lately (rather than blogs) and you’re right that the information is more substantial. However, blogs are a great way to stay updated about trends, issues, and other timely information. If you’d like to write a guest post expressing your criticism, I’d be happy to consider it.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:46:13 +0000

Hi,
Sorry, I like to be honest.
It seems to me that a substantial amount of blogging is just an excuse to “publish” general “filler” that most respectable and respected publishers would edit out of essays as warble.
To write for writings sake seems to me to be a waste of time and imagination.
I can relate to blogging as a way of conveying professional knowledge, for teaching or passing on relevant information to help enrich peoples lives and promoting better understanding of specific professions or ways of life, but just the to write a list superior sounding words that can be subtracted and compounded to leave space for something useful or even poetic…
Isn’t this the principle aim of Tech comm. Simple,concise, accurate and ultimately readable?
Why is none of this stuff published in a book? Because no-one would buy it.
I think blogging could be rationlized as intellectual messaging. None of that shrtnng of wrds 2 xpress qikly smtn light.More like short paragraphs of accurate language that communicate ideas.
Its so much more skillful to use one word instead of three. Just read a sentence from any PG Wodehouse piece, its pure art…
“…To Lord E the park and gardens of Blandings were the nearest earthly approach to paradise. Freddie, chaffing at captivity, had mooned about them with an air of crushed gloom which would have caused comment in Siberia.”
You can just breath the creativity in that. In so few words you can perceive precisely what PG wants you to.
When writing bloggs perhaps it would help to imagine how PG might.

By: Jeff Hino

Jeff Hino — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:02:26 +0000

Tom,
Your essay struck a chord with me. I’m new to blogging. Our blog focuses on technical topics relating to instructional design, technology, and publication in our Web 2.0 world. But I recently had a personal incident that forced me to blur the lines between the technical and the personal.

Writing this particular blog became a cathartic experience for me, relating thethe near loss of my wife’s life while on a remote vacation to the power of Web 2.0 (a blog of sorts) to help me survive emotionally. I was concerned that my colleagues (three of us co-write for the blog) would dismiss the piece as too personal, off-topic, and not all that academic.

But like you said, it was therapy for me to write the piece. The more I wrote, the more sense it made that this really showed value in a way that hadn’t been made obvious in many academic treatments of social networking. It was embedding me in the story, but still exploring a technical topic. So I pressed forth. My colleagues (to my delight) were all for it going online. We’ll see how it goes when it posts.

Hope you survived the Utah slot canyons. They are beautiful.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:02:25 +0000

Like others, I enjoy reading about your journey.

I tend to think a lot about audience when I’m writing, too. But maybe what “writing for yourself” means is that you actually do it, and that if you go back and read what you wrote, it would be interesting to you. One of my favorite authors said that he never went back and read his own work, but I think an author’s writing has to be compelling and inviting to him or her first and foremost.

One of those tech writers who also enjoys making things up, I decided recently that I needed to write the things I have in my head even if I never got them published. Like you said, if I get to the end of my life without having written them, I would seriously regret it. And maybe my family would regret it as well.

By: Sushant

Sushant — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:38:39 +0000

Tom, I appreciate your efforts for posting blogs on variety of tech comm subjects. We all like your posts not only becuase they reflect recent trends but also the way you write them in a story-telling manner. And you can really connect with more by making such valuable postings.

By: Jenny Pilley

Jenny Pilley — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:37:50 +0000

There are good points you make. I agree that although many advise to write for yourself, that isn’t going to help you gain interest to your writing from others. You want people to engage with what you are writing about and for that to happen you need to find a common ground between you and your audience.

Good luck with finding your motivation and I think the best cure for this is definitely getting away from it all!

By: Eddie VanArsdall

Eddie VanArsdall — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:36:18 +0000

Tom, although you may focus on tech comm, you have a gift for often integrating your perspective with some personal aspect of your life. I think that you’re already on your way to fulfilling the transition that you seek. Your blog title says it all, and it opens up possibilities. I appreciate when I acquire technical knowledge from reading your posts, but to be honest, I mostly read them because I like your writing and your stories. Go for it!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:25:24 +0000

I look forward to it!

By: Karen Swim

Karen Swim — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:05:43 +0000

Tom, your post mirrors a common struggle of many blog writers, including me. I have found my solution might lie in starting another blog. It is the path that others like Darren Rowse have taken and I now intimately understand why. Creative people (artists, writers, musicians) are always between the twin towers of commercial success and the personal muse. Bridging the gap between the two is not impossible but often the muse calls us to depart from commercial success. I hope that the time away will bring you the answers you seek and by golly if you find the way out, please share.