How does one start a blog?

[Fab Foodie]

I shan't be forcing anyone to read it, so I don't see the problem. I haven't even got round to composing anything yet. My initial idea was, like Colin, a way of recording something in order to motivate myself, but I've since thought of other stuff to add, all of which may be terribly tedious, but just might be funny or useful, so who knows?

As a matter of fact, I also have a few ideas for novels and a couple of travel type books (the old 'follow a journey with a theme' type), if I ever get round to them... But I shan't insist anyone reads them either.

I'm thinking Bridget Jones meets Jackie Collins here with more cycling...

 

[Dave5N]

Blogs are not necessarily meant to be journalism (except where they is - like the Huffington Post, for example). They can be anything from whimsical nonsense through to new literature to analysis, to serious investigative work and excellent science communication (if you don't believe me, read www.realclimate.org). Blogging it not 'better' or worse than anything else, it is something different. A new method of communication. It is an addition not a replacement. People once argued that popular novels were not real writing, that jazz was not real music and that cinema was just brainless and had no artistic value. They were all wrong. We keep increasing the media available to us - it doesn't mean that every time some new form of communication develops that everything else is wiped out or we abandon our critical faculties.

I do find it a bit amusing people who think that this isn't how things 'are meant to be' - what, in the Nineteenth Century?

And as for people who assert some massive generalised opinion without any reasons - well sorry, Dave5N, that is simply ignorant. This was also a request for information from Arch, which some of us responded to in a constructive way, so your negative opinion was not really called for anyway...

And is that a fact or just another negative opinion?

 

[Arch]

I'm thinking Bridget Jones meets Jackie Collins here with more cycling...

I'll see what I can do.

Be afraid. I typed up some of my Fridge Poetry last night.

 

[Cycling Naturalist]

No thank you. I think I can add my own spice, if required...

Phew.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

And is that a fact or just another negative opinion?

No, it was a reasoned argument. You should try it some time!

 

[Dave5N]

No, it was a reasoned argument. You should try it some time!

Why? DOesn't sound like any fun at all.

 

[Crackle]

Why? DOesn't sound like any fun at all.

Don't wear FM's clothes Dave, they won't fit and stop inserting smiley's it's just not you.

I've come to expect a dry ambiguousness, bordering on rude, strong in stubborn, with a core of direct, occasional practical usefulness, expressed in terse phrase, all topped with an original sprinkling of quirky humour but no reason, definitely no reason.

 

[Dave5N]

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Don't wear FM's clothes Dave, they won't fit and stop inserting smiley's it's just not you.

I've come to expect a dry ambiguousness, bordering on rude, strong in stubborn, with a core of direct, occasional practical usefulness, expressed in terse phrase, all topped with an original sprinkling of quirky humour but no reason, definitely no reason.

I thought for a second you were talking about me. The I saw the words 'terse' and 'practical', and realised there was no way!

 

[Dave5N]

I thought for a second you were talking about me. The I saw the words 'terse' and 'practical', and realised there was no way!

I saw those words and knew it was you.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

I suppose that the more interesting your life the mor einteresting your blog is to others...so...perhaps if you are stuck in a dull life..writing a blog might make you get up and change it for a more interesting one?? Dunno...I dont follow any....but then I'm an illiterate phesant anywayz

 

[beanzontoast]

The question maybe shouldn't be 'How can I blog?' but 'Why should I blog'.

Leaving aside the few (very few) interesting blog, and those which have some point (like assisted weight-loss, or whatever), there are millions of the most boring banging-on badly-written diaries now floating around the net.

Yes, the internet and blogging DID make self-publishing easy, and objectively anything that empowers ordinary people is a good thing.

In a similar way, digital photography liberated many millions of people from the tedium of carefully arranging and lighting each shot, waiting for film to be developed, choosing which negs to blow up, and so on.

Making it easy isn't a Good Thing in itself; think spray-on cheese.


A.

Trouble is, all you end up with both in the blog form and digital pics is countless millions of pointless words and dreadful photos, most of which would NEVER have seen the light of day had their perpetrators had to be disciplined and literate in their production.

+1 on the 'why' coming before the 'how'.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I think the Bible should only be available in Latin. Who knows where it will lead if peasants start to understand and even read? One day they might even try to write themselves! And what good can possibly come of that? We all know that knowledge and self-expression should be reserved to a self-selecting elite. It is God's law, don't you know?

Seriously some of you people should listen to how you sound. It really isn't up to you to pronounce on what is or isn't an appropriate thing for people to be doing if it isn't harming anyone else. For hundreds of years, people have tried to stop the growth of communications. It is an effort that has been demonstrably pointless and regressive.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Blimey FM, have another Brahma for Kharma....

Anyway, according to the lunchtime news, these 2 were caught 'cos their antics were on Photos in somebody's Blog...

FM, I think like many popular things, Blogs will follow the similar rules of distribution... the majority will be absolute bollocks and only a few will be worth reading. You have to kiss a lot of frogs...

 

[Flying_Monkey]

FM, I think like many popular things, Blogs will follow the similar rules of distribution... the majority will be absolute bollocks and only a few will be worth reading. You have to kiss a lot of frogs...

Of course. 95% of everything is rubbish - or at least irrelevant except to its very tiny target audience. Take my wife's blog for example (no, that's not a Bernard Manning joke...) - it is basically there so that her friends in Japan and around the world can see what she is up to. It doesn't pretend to have literary or artistic merit, not is anyone who isn't somehow connected to her likely to care about it. It does a very useful job and one that was simply not possible even 20 years ago. It is all positive. It makes people happy. That's why I find criticism of blogs a bit pointless...

BTW, I'm interested in why you think I need to chill - did you not see the humour in my previous post?