Cameron Moll, in a recent iStockPhoto interview expressed his thoughts about blogging:
I’d love to say I blog merely because I enjoy it. I do enjoy it. But with a family and plenty of other obligations, that isn’t always the case.
Personally I couldn’t have said it better, but his words are certainly the sentiment of several bloggers who take time out of their busy lives to blog. It’s one thing when you’re sharing information about having a cup of coffee at Starbucks, it’s another when you’ve opted to share your methodologies and theories on a particular subject. The post about having an espresso might take you anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes to publish. In theory it might be interesting to those who know you well or feel they share certain similarities to you, but to most people, reading about your espresso experiences might be as dull as a rusted switchblade.
However, when you’ve researched a topic on how “Automation Will Kill Us All” you’ve most likely put time and effort into researching your topic and making sure your points are valid and readable. These kinds of posts spark more interest because you can tell the writer, or in this case the designer, really went out on a limb to express their thoughts and theories to their readers.
It takes time to develop coherent thought and even more so when you’re trying to educate your readers about an idea, theory, method or observation, something with substance. When you’ve got other responsibilities that manage to take up about 99.9% of your time it becomes that much more difficult to set aside time to blog, or maintain your presence. Your hope is that those who opt to add your site to their growing list of feeds will read your new material despite the fact you might not post on a daily basis.
Right on.
I’m working on a post that’s more in depth and requires a good amount of fore thought. I enjoy reading about others’ viwepoints and ideas about how they work. Honestly, I don’t recognize how much effort it took to write untill I write something with more substance.
I might try analog bloging to get my ideas out when I’m not in front of a computer, then post the word for word conversion. Sometimes it’s too easy to start a post and never finish it, but if it’s in ink the page will need to be completed.
Sometimes I think of a topic to write about, and then I think to myself “Nah, everyone already knows about that! I wouldn’t be adding anything new.
Then I read about how no one knows about the Unsharp Mask filter. On one hand, I see that I should not be second guessing myself on such topics. On the other hand, seriously, I thought everyone knew that already.
I tend to take the lazy approach, and just write what I’m thinking/feeling at the time. I don’t take my time, I don’t search for the right words, I just let it go. That’s just my style. Your style is more careful, thoughtful, eloquent. You make blogging a science and art form, whereas I tend to just see what happens. I hope to one day mature enough, somehow, that I can write as well as you do.
True. Often I ask myself whether it’s more important to research and write or to just simply write.
Couldn’t be told better. In my case, having done the blog thing for so many years -mostly in Spanish- I’ve come to a point (matured?) where I just can’t go and put whatever thought crosses my mind just to comply with some self-imposed post quota or because I think that’s expected of me. That’s absurd - I’d rather try to write out something useful and of lasting value, even if that takes me lots of R&D and not being able to “show signs of life” in days or even weeks. In the long run, it will be more satisfying for me.
That, and I really need to make myself an avatar here, dammit.
Yes you do, Alberto and you’re absolutely right. It’s best not to try to maintain self quotas, especially in my case when I can just barely make a deadline.