To blog or not to blog

The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
explains the ins and outs of cyberlife

by JULIET WATERS

I’ve been resisting the impulse to blog for a couple of years now. Well, half-resisting. I started a blog about two years ago and then promptly put it on total privacy setting. I joined a blogging community experiment launched by my favourite online magazine, Salon.com, last September. I posted my picture and a bio, then immediately forgot about it for four months.

Then I joined Facebook.

Even that was a slow immersion process. I joined on a misunderstanding, thinking I could research someone I was writing about. Once my name was in the system, I got one friend request and then another, which I politely declined with personal e-mails explaining that I was not Facebook active. Then I got a request from Juliet Waters in Australia. How could I not friend myself? Flash forward two weeks, and there I am sentencing my 40 friends to regular updates on my largely uninteresting life, now and forevermore part of the seething, ever growing cyberbrain.

Soon, I needed more, but I knew I also needed guidance. You know how it is when you cross the threshold into the hard stuff. Thank God for The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. I’ve visited the HuffPo a few times and haven’t felt much of an urge to return. But I gotta say, I found this book invaluable as I set out on my journey through the danger-fraught blogosphere.

And believe me, there are big dangers, the biggest being that you take it too seriously and/or confuse blogging with actual writing. This doesn’t mean that capital W writing never happens on blogs. But blogging is closer to conversation. Most of what is written on blogs is meant to evaporate fairly quickly. This will become an essential fact to keep in mind.

There are people who do this “fingertalking” effortlessly and draw community like flies to honey (and in some cases another substance.)

And there are people who aren’t. They make embarrassing mistakes that risk the danger of becoming preserved like fossilized farts. If you ever find yourself doubting the importance of books, go out and make those mistakes on your own. And when it’s time to cover your scent, you might consider buying this.

Once you’re ready to learn the technology of syndicating your blogs, linking to likeminded blogs, and even making money on your blog (if after a few months, you think it’s possible), you’ll find all the information you need for that in here. But more importantly, what you’ll probably find in here is your particular reason for blogging. Should you find yourself in the middle of a flame war, or worse, entirely ignored, the thing most likely to bring you back to sanity is going to be a clear sense of your motivation and your “subject,” the passion that will draw you back to your blog again and again.

According to one poll, the number one subject most people write about is their lives. The third is government and politics. So what’s the second? That would be “other.” From the couple of months of regular blogging that I’ve now done, my guess is that category is mostly composed of what is called “meta,” blogging about blogging, how much you love your new cyberfriends, how much you hate your new cyberenemies, blogwhoring (the practice of shamelessly promoting your blog), flouncing (the practice of publicly swearing off blogging, only to return with an apology or a new avatar).

If I have one strong criticism of this book, it’s that in its hurry to announce all the wonderful things that blogging is doing for the world, there isn’t much here on how to protect yourself emotionally and professionally from the shiny but destructive allure of the meta.

Then again, I’m not sure there is much more advice that can be given on this topic, other than take it slow. I’m glad I did.

THE HUFFINGTON POST COMPLETE
GUIDE TO BLOGGING BY THE EDITORS
OF THE HUFFINGTON POST, SIMON &
SHUSTER, PB. 230 PP. $15