What To Do When Your Blog Is Dying

The FLG has never really caught on. It started out being my only blog, then I opened up The FLG's Log to handle all the weight loss blogging while trying to keep The FLG as my personal blog. The problem soon arose, however, that I had nothing to post in The FLG because blogging about weight loss is very personal. Everything just seemed to drift over to the Log, and The FLG died.

After closing The FLG I went on with things over at the Log, which had already gathered a few readers. It became my blog for everything I wanted to post, a jack-of-all-trades if you will. After a while I started to notice that it had become sort of bloated (pardon the pun), and I tried to scale things back as far as topics were concerned. This led to a stifling feeling, like I couldn't post anything I wanted, so I thought about it and eventually re-opened The FLG.

The FLG opened rather unceremoniously, and I once again had an outlet for whatever I wanted to post. And I did... at first. Then I got caught in the trap of creating a concept that I couldn't keep up with. I wanted to make The FLG great, and put a spin on the concept, making this a blog about things average Fat Lazy Guys are interested in. Y'know, music, gaming, tech, etc. But I'm no authority, nor do I have an opinion on everything that's coming out. And so that brings us to now.

What To Do When Your Blog Is Dying

There's a number of things you can do, and they're probably really obvious.

1. Close Your Blog - Sometimes you just have to count your losses and move on. This doesn't mean you have to stop blogging all together, just in this particular blog. Be sure to save any good content, though, as it's yours, and you're free to reproduce and republish as you see fit.

2. Reinvent Your Blog - You may have a great title, great blog design, but a poor concept. Think about things you're passionate about, and have lots of opinions about, and blog about them. You can try to be like everyone else, or you can just be yourself. It's much easier to be yourself.

3. Persevere - You may be doing everything right, and still just have no readers. In that case, I'd just keep going, and keep at it. Have a look at sites like ProBlogger, and find ways you can advertise your blog. If your blog is worth reading, it'll be read eventually.

4. Do Nothing - Similar to closing your blog, only with less effort. Just let the blog die :D

What am I planning to do? At the moment, #4. Then perhaps later, #2. We'll see :D

The Journey of a Blog Post

I've been on a bit of a blog kick lately, as in reading and writing about blogs and blogging. Anyway, I came across this post on boing boing that linked to a post from Wired about what happens to your post once you hit "publish". It's got a cool flash graphic that explains it all, and it's really quite interesting. Check it out.

What do I Expect from this Blog?

So another post inspired by Kim's post. This time it answers the meme question, and hopefully much quicker as I'm really tired right now, but I'm trying to keep up my goal of making a post a day for a month or so.

Okay, first off, lets get back to the beginning. Here is where the original meme started.

Terry, the originator of the meme, points out that the question itself, while similar on the surface to "Why do I blog?", is a bit different.

You might blog for many reasons, everything from personal expression to monetization. But if those are your reasons then how do you measure if you’ve met them? If on any given day only 2% of the blogosphere produces posts, what unmet expectations are causing the other 98% to sit dormant?

So with that in mind, I'll try to answer.

By keeping this blog, I expect my writing to improve. I think this may be a recent development, but I'm definitely aware that I'd like to be able to better convey my thoughts, whether that be succinctly or with more detail. So I expect by continuing to write, that this will improve.

I expect people to enjoy reading this blog. This relates partly to my previous post about why I blog. To entertain. Therefore it is my expectation that people should enjoy it. If they don't, then I'm failing to meet my expectations.

I expect to get comments. Again this relates back to my previous post. It was definitely a bad start to the day today (but it ended up being okay ;)). If I don't get comments, then no one's enjoying it enough to reply, and I'm failing my expectations.

I do expect this blog to take some time to get some readership. I've only JUST reopened it, so it'll take a while before anything to happen, IF anything happens :D

That's about it really. I don't expect to make any money from it. I don't expect to change peoples lives. I just expect this blog to give back what I put into it, I suppose.

Now, per the rules I'm supposed to choose 5 people to tag:

So here are the rules:

1. Answer the question, “What do you expect from your blog?” and try to be as specific as possible. Avoid warm-fuzzy answers unless that really is your thing. Link back to the blog who tagged you so your readers can check others’ answers.
2. Tag at least five bloggers with the same question.

I'll take Cmae, Meredith, Chris Maples, Marshy and... Urban Chick. If you don't feel like participating, then I completely understand. Or if you weren't tagged, and you want to do it anyway, then by all means go ahead. I did :D

Why Do I Blog?

I was inspired by Kim Ayres' post to copy him and write my own :D I'm not really participating in the meme, which asked "What do I expect from my blog?" Instead this follows more the spirit of Kim's post in that it tries to explain why I blog. This is mostly for my benefit, but we're all a little curious, aren't we?

I'm a little bit afraid to post this because I'd simply be rewording a lot of what Kim said. He mentioned that he blogs not because he has to write, but because he has to be read, to feel that he's made an impact on the world, to feel validated, and I really relate to a lot of that.

I started blogging on a forum a few years back because I wanted a place where I could be heard. I wanted a place that people wanted to come to, to read what I had written. And I guess today that's still the reason I blog. I suppose that's a reason a lot of people blog.

Kim also mentioned that he blogs to communicate. To pass on ideas and stuff. I can relate to that too. I don't have the need to educate, but I do feel a deep need to entertain. To make people smile, or laugh, or think, or just plain react. And I guess that relates to validation as well. If I can do that, then I've done something, I'm worthy, I'm a part of their experience.

I think that need to entertain motivates (or motivated) my music playing. I loved the sensation of playing in front of a crowd. You feed off their energy, and I suppose that's how I get with blogging as well. I LOVE the comments. It's possibly unhealthy how much stock I put into the comments. It's a bad start to the day waking up, checking the emails and there's no comments.

As far as a desire to write for writing's sake, I don't think I've ever written anything truly for or to myself. When I dabbled in poetry as a teen to express my angst, I always tried to share it. All my music was meant to be shared. My short stories were meant to be shared (of which, admittedly, there is only one). Pretty much everything I've ever done has been done with the knowledge that it'd be shared with someone.

But this is about why I blog, not why I do everything. So, back to the topic at hand. Aside from wanting to feel like I matter, I blog for the regular reasons. I'm highly opinionated. I love the way blogging can open up a miniature community. I love hearing from people who have gone or are going through similar things that I'm going through. And I love hearing from people who have had different experiences from me.

And of course, like Kim mentioned, I blog in the hopes that someone will discover me and offer me millions of dollars to keep on writing thoughts about nothing in particular :D

So that's why I blog. That's what I get out of it. And that's why I'll continue to do it. Oh, and I know this isn't exactly a meme, but if any one wants to answer that question who hasn't already, by all means feel free, just leave me a comment to let me know you did :D