So You Want to Blog - What Good is It?
I have close to 600 unfinished articles that were started with a germ of an idea but never published. Some are mere outlines and some even had an investment of a few hours of research on them. It's not that the topic wasn't interesting at the time, it's just that I could not find a personal observation that would make it uniquely mine, different from all other similar posts found on the Internet.
Let me explain. Every week I receive hundreds of emails: some suggesting topics or asking clarifications, some heaping praise, some condemning me to hell. Then there are the email forwards, you know, urban legends, requests to boycott this or that company, rumors, hearsay and whatnot with dire warnings of what will happen if you don't forward the material to a hundred other friends.
Rather than simply cutting and pasting the email content, I like to wrap my own view around the email as I did in my post Message to Coca Cola: To Hell With Multiculturalism. The original email is slightly over 1700 words in length to which I added my own 400 word take on the matter.
Then there are email forwards that are so inaccurate they require a thorough overhaul and correction as I did in Barry Chamish and the Ringworm Children Hoax. For that article I spent more than 100 hours researching medical journals, reading scientific tracts, and collecting historical data to show that the original email was one big fat lie.
Sometimes I only add one comment or two as in my article Tea Party Tax Form.
One can find my collection of email forwards here.
As for my unpublished articles, I view them as eggs waiting to get fertilized. A blogger whose website is now defunct gave the following thoughts about unfinished articles when she was feeling a bit low about blogging:
Random Thoughts and Then SomeThere is plenty to write about, to say, but the words just won't get out or I begin a post and just lose my interest. How many articles do we want to read on terrorists, this crappy government, the state of the union in general, and all the broken promises?
When do Americans wake up? When do Americans read for themselves, educate themselves, and grow up?
...
I wrote and wrote and wrote, for over two years I wrote and for what? Who really listened? Obama still became President, Bush still is not appreciated for the good he did do. So I ask, for what?
The article above is no longer available anywhere on the web, but if the author wishes, she may reveal herself in the comment section.
I too have started articles that just never finished themselves, usually because I asked myself if anyone else would be interested in reading what I wrote or the equally deadly "Will this change anything in the world?" Wrong questions to ask. If we asked ourselves, "Does the world really need another human being?" we probably wouldn't bring any children into the world.
So don't ask yourself if what you are writing is good for anything or if anyone else is interested. That will kill the unborn post. Just write - be yourself.
If you are thinking of blogging as a way of making money then don't waste your time even starting. I would like to think that for a nobody like myself I have a somewhat successful blog in terms of page views, over 5,000 per day so far this year, and I barely make $8 a day on average [I use the money to pay for bandwidth, statcounters, and coffee]. For one-tenth the time spent blogging I would make more money helping people carry their groceries at the supermarket.
This article was one of those 600 in the never-before-published pile and was originally penned four years ago.
