My world on the web
john (johnjohnston.info)Following a link from Brad I saw the lovely Making Websites Should Be Easy and then the handy What is a feed? (a.k.a. RSS) | About Feeds. Add a link to the last to my sidebar.
So here they are, my personal rules for blogging.
- Three posts a week, more or less.
- One idea per post. If I find myself launching into another section, cut and paste the extra into a separate draft post, and tie off the original one with the word “Anyway.” Then publish.
- No hedging, no nuance. If I’m getting in a twist about a sentence, take it out.
- Give up on attempting to be right.
- Give up on providing full links and citations.
- Give up on saying anything new. Most people haven’t read my old stuff. Play the hits.
- Give up on trying to be popular. I try not to filter myself based on what I believe will be popular. Some of my favourite posts get ignored. Some posts get popular and I have no idea why. Besides, terrible posts get buried fast if I’m posting three times a week. So post with abandon.
- Give up on trying to be interesting. Readers will come to my site for what’s interesting to me, or not, it’s fine, just say what I think about whatever I’m thinking about.
- But make it work for a general audience.
- Only write what’s in my head at that exact moment. It’s 10x faster.
- If it’s taking too long to write, stop.
- Don’t use a post just to link to something elsewhere. If there’s a point to make, start with that.
- Titles should be descriptive and have the flavour of the post. And rewrite the lede once the post is done so the whole thing gets to the point faster.
- It’s ok not to blog if it feels like a chore.
- Writing is a muscle.