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title: "Nine Lessons for Would-be Bloggers – Great Advice from Josh Porter on Overcoming Blogging Hangups"
date: 2007-03-12
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canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/2007/03/12/blogging-advice-thats-100-true/
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# Nine Lessons for Would-be Bloggers – Great Advice from Josh Porter on Overcoming Blogging Hangups
He also says your blog should have a "schtick." It helps you focus on finding things to say. Porter explains:

> I write about lots of things here on Bokardo, but my schtick is that I write about social design. I even have the words explained on every page on this site. Why is this? Well, it helps me keep a focus for the blog…to keep the posts moving in a general direction. This vastly improves my ability to figure out what to write about, because I've got a flag to fly. Before I had a clear focus I used to flounder when I couldn't decide what to write about…I ended up with a much less focused blog and poorer posts because of it.
> One caveat, though. You have to *really* believe in your schtick…you have to think that the topic is important and have to have *passion* for it. You can still deviate from the topic, as I'm doing with this post, and that's OK. It's a lot easier to write exceptions to the rule than it is to not have a rule in the first place. So plant your flag…have a schtick…it not only makes writing easier but you'll also get other people thinking about your blog in terms of it. It's kind of like a brand in this way.

Blogs that cover anything and everything aren't that appealing to me. When I first started blogging, Scott Abel advised me that blogging itself isn't very attractive, but blogging about a specific topic *is* attractive. He encouraged me to not to archive my categories by date, but to select categories that my blog would be about, and then let me archives by driven by category. It's proven to be useful advice.