Day ten, double digits. These past days I have been focusing on being able to write at all, on overcoming obstacles. Hoping that the writing problems lie behind me it’s time I focus a little bit on the blog. For a while I have been editing my writing, allowing me to at least pretend that I’m a real blogger. Editing is good, it helps make the text easier to read for the viewers, irons out the most obvious speed bumps of grammatical error or poorly written sentences as well as weird paragraphs. Besides all that, there is no spell check that can find every typo you make. Sometimes the typo is a word, a wrong word, but spell check is no mind reader. It will still let it pass. To make sure the text flows naturally it’s recommended to read it out loud. That’s the best way to find any strange passages where the words get stuck somehow.
Having a smoothly flowing text makes it easier to keep readers interested in coming back. The number of people who wants a reading challenge isn’t that high. Most of us don’t want to struggle when we read, especially not a blog. Having a thousand words is more than enough struggle. I’m not suggesting my flow is great, that simply wouldn’t be me, but I’m hoping my editing will fix the worst parts. It’s all a learning process as well as a matter of practicing. I’ll keep trying.
Making the best of the text to make the reader interested in returning is all well and good, but you can’t keep any readers if you don’t get them interested in reading in the first place. If no one visits the post or reads it, then no one will know that you’re a genius at writing easy flowing texts with remarkable content. (Still not me.) You need something to make people curious enough to stop and read. You need a good title for your post. This is something I have noticed in my previous blogs. A great title draws people in. If they stay and read, if they come back, those are different questions. But none of that will happen if they don’t come to begin with.
A good title for your post is important. When I started this blog I mentioned the thousand word challenge in every title, it seemed like a good idea considering that the writing challenge also is the foundation of the blog. Not only is the posts made up of the challenge texts, it’s also what I have been writing about, blogging about. However, it’s also the name of the blog itself and doesn’t have to be in every title. But only using the number of the day isn’t very interesting either.
The title is the first a potential viewer will see. That’s where they make the choice to look at your blog or to keep scrolling. This is your chance, take it, make the title catchy. Make it reflect what you’re writing about. I have decided that from now on I will pay more attention to how I title my posts, which means I will also have to start thinking of what I write about. Writing a thousand word is the chaööenge, but it gets boring if it’s always the same thing. I’m at a point where I feel like all I’m doing is constantly repeating myself. Writing the same things over and over again. It’s time to start paying more attention to the topics.
Deciding what to write about can be somewhat of a problem for me though. Whatever i choose, someone else is already writing about it, and doing it better than I ever could, so why should I? The blog-teachers will tell you why, it’s because you are the only one who can put your perspective into the topic whatever it is. One example is my attempts at blogging about trying to blog. I read the how-to- books and blogs and blogged about what I read. I often thought that why don’t they just read that? What’s the point of me writing about this? I could just post the link. But the reason why I still wrote about it is because I would add my thoughts to the mix. How I interpreted what i was reading. How I was dealing with the advice given and what problems I found with them. I was reiterating what the “professionals” were teaching me while trying to follow the advice they gave. I was trying to make it work and sharing my struggles. The same way I now share my struggle with my writing and blogging challenges. Not to mention the language struggles. Let’s not mention the language struggles.
Back to the question about topic. Everyone stresses how important it is for potential readers to know what you write about, to have a niche. I am sure this isn’t a huge problem for most people. You have a hobby, something you’re interested in, is good at, that’s what you will blog about. Maybe that is the reason you actually do blog to begin with. That’s not me though. In my case it’s as if the blogging in itself is what’s my hobby and interest, not that I’m particularly good at it though. Maybe one day… a girl can dream, right? Though the truth ,might actually be that when it comes to managing my blog, I’m doing it all wrong.
I have many hobbies though. I’m interested in many things and I know a little about a lot. For a blog it’s better to know a lot about one thing. Being all over the place might be my way of life and working perfectly great for me. It’s not helping my blogging though. Not if I want to have an audience. And to be honest, what kind of challenge would this blog be if I didn’t at least try to grow my audience, the numbers. If I don’t care at all, then there’s no point of having a blog at all. It’s just writing. For a drawer.
For ten days I’ve been proving to myself that I can type one thousand words every day no matter what happens. But the blogging? I have not been paying much attention to the blogging. To make sure this day more about the blog than the writing I am typing this as one super long paragraph. Hopefully it won’t be like that by the time you read it. It*s going to take a lot of editing.
Shannon Hale said writing is filling the box with sand, editing is building the castle. The question today is if I am capable of building castles.
And by the way. I have reached that magical number again.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day!
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