- Blues Traveler

Tuesday was BloggerDad.com’s three month anniversary. I’ve learned A LOT during the past three months and what better way to celebrate an anniversary than with a gift? Don’t pay some blogging expert for their e-book to tell you how to get Stumbled or Dugg when I’ll tell you everything you need to know to go from blogging newbie to a full fledged BlogStar for FREE! Some may note that I’m far from a blogging pro, myself. But why should that stop me from telling YOU how to be?

People don’t actually read posts – they read subheads

In blogging, subheads are used to aid in quick digestion so readers can quickly scan a post without actually reading it and still know enough to easily feign sincerity in the comments.

Target your audience – write your posts to one reader

Common blogging wisdom says that you should write your posts with a single reader in mind. Many blogs use personal language such as “your” and “you” when referring to this reader. This adds for a conversational feel which makes your readers think that you care about them and would donate your kidney to them if given half the chance.

Some examples of personal writing:

• You won’t believe what happened this weekend.
• How was your weekend?
• Man, I had the worst explosive diarrhea! You should have seen it!
• How would you like to donate to my PayPal?

This sort of language is effective for creating a bond. I want to make my blog even MORE personal, though. I have decided to address all future posts to a named reader! I’ll pick a popular name which will guarantee at least a few million people will feel that much closer to me. What do you think, Steve?

Sure, the non-Steves may feel excluded, but given the voyeuristic tendencies of most people, they will likely want to read the blog even more if they think it’s just a personal conversation between you and I, Steve.

People love short posts

The shorter, the better. The ideal blog post contains 14 words. Anything more, then you’re just being self indulgent. Bloggers who post 650 word posts are just egomaniacal jerks.

Bloggers don’t take their own advice

See above.

People love pictures

If you insist on writing blog posts which run on for more than a paragraph, then you MUST, MUST, MUST mix things up, Steve. People do not want to see large blocks of text on the page. One way to break up ugly text is to use pictures. Pictures of cats are especially popular.

Another way to break up the text is to use lists.

People LOVE lists

It doesn’t even matter if the list is relevant to your post’s topic. Watch:

Words and terms which sound dirty but aren’t

• dangle
• boisenberries
• trickle
• analgesic

Even better than lists, are ORDERED lists! Nothing looks more important than a list with numbers. Including lists also increases the odds of your post being Stumbled or Dugg by 5,007%!

Things in my pockets

1. paper towel to blow my nose
2. pen – never leave house without it
3. loose change
4. a noodle which I picked up off the floor so my son wouldn’t eat it
5. Oddly enough, a shopping list

It’s not what you say

It’s not what you say, but how you say it, Steve.  If you can say it in italics, all the better!

While blogging is a visual medium, it doesn’t play by the same rules as traditional media. The most powerful of paragraphs in a book would be doomed in a blog where blocks of text are ignored in favor of eye pleasing tricks.

However, in a blog, anything can be made to seem important by simply using a different, heavier font.

For example take these sentences:

It was corduroy.

It was always corduroy.

Powerful stuff.

Always leave the reader wanting more

There is a fine line between writing an informative post and giving away all your information in one shot, Steve. You want your reader to come back for more. The best way to get them to come back for more is to

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I want to create a world in which you will lose yourself. Actually, make that worlds.

I’m a writer, a cartoonist and as of two months ago, a blogger. I’ve had moderate recognition with the first two endeavors, having written (and drawn editorial cartoonists) for a newspaper for three years. I’ve also developed a decent sized readership of my comic strip, though I’ve yet to reach out to a syndicate. Blogging is still very new to me, but it feels like a calling. I’ve been pouring my everything into it and am slowly finding a great community.

The problem is, I’ve not yet found breakout success with any of these ventures. You know, the kind of success where you can make a comfortable living doing what you want to do.

Some people have suggested that I concentrate on one area, say comics, and put everything into that. But if there’s one thing I learned from my layoff at the paper in June, it’s to not place all my eggs into one basket. I am filling as many baskets as I can and hoping one of them will have the golden egg. If I can find success with any one of my loves, I will be able to pursue them all.

Rather than follow one path, I intend to create new ones and – new worlds.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being scared. Fear nips at my feet and lurks in the shadows, its venomous tongue giving voice to my self doubts.

“Who are YOU to think you can write? Everything good has been done. There are no new ideas, no new ways to say things. You suck. Just give up.”

But I can’t. There is too much riding on this. This is my earliest dream – to create.

Every word I write and each picture I draw brings me closer to turning dreams into reality.

But dreams without time mean nothing. The best and brightest of dreams fade to black without the time to fulfill them. And time is where I keep losing the battle. Drawing comics takes anywhere from two to four hours per strip. Blogging involves not only writing, but commenting and following other blogs. Writing also gobbles away at the clock. In the past two months, (since starting Blogger Dad) I’ve missed several comic updates and have not written much outside of this blog.

In short, I’ve spread myself too thin across three different artistic endeavors. I need to develop a time management system to ensure I can give my all to each of these efforts. My worlds depend on it.

If anyone has any advice or related stories, I’d love to hear from you.

To read another post in which I talk about why I want to create such worlds, click here.

Coming tomorrow: Blogger of Steel, Ron Mattocks of Clark Kent’s Lunchbox answers Eight Questions.

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That’s about all I can say after yesterday’s excellent interview with Barbara Swafford, which brought a deluge of first time visitors, commentators and e-mailers to BloggerDad.

To those of you who came back for seconds, thank you for sticking around.

Now the question I’ve been mulling all day is – how do I follow such a great interview? What do I do to turn you first time readers into regular readers?

Do I write a funny post? (well, humor wasn’t what brought you here to begin with, but it is a large part of my writing).

Do I write something inspirational? I’ve noticed that many of you write blogs on self improvement, but that isn’t my topic of expertise. I’m very much a BEFORE picture in any BEFORE and AFTER success based ad campaign.

Do I post another interview? No, that will come next week. Besides, I need to be able to win you over on my own. While I absolutely LOVE interviewing others, the whole point of blogging for me is to write content that you enjoy.

So, what do I do?

Rather than write a new post, I’ve decided to reflect on what this blog is and what I want it to become. For those who don’t know me yet, it may offer some insight to what BloggerDad is all about. For my regular readers, my future plans may be of some interest.

Seven weeks old

This blog was born seven weeks ago – still an infant (though it poops a bit less than a baby). I don’t really have a niche, instead combining humor, inspiration and thoughtful posts on a variety of topics. I also write a bit about being a first time dad to a 17 month old Energizer Bunny Boy. But this blog is more than the sum of those parts, I’d like to think.

It’s also about community.

The most surprising thing I’ve learned in my short blogging career is how many witty and thoughtful readers and fellow bloggers have welcomed me and stuck around to help make this such a great community. Thank you to all my regular readers and posters.

Here are some random statistics about this blog, which may help you get to know this site a bit better:

• I’ve posted 35 posts (including this one)
• I’ve received 422 comments (not sure how many are mine)
• Dave Fowler has been the biggest commenter to date, with 58 posts. way to go, Dave!
• Sean Platt is the first blogger I struck up a great working relationship with
• My most common tag is humor, which makes up 17 of the posts
• My least common tag is product reviews, making up one post
• I’ve conducted four Eight Questions interviews
• Two of the four interviews went longer than eight questions
• My most commented on post is yesterday’s interview with Barbara Swafford with 35 comments to date
• My most commented on non-interview post is about my most embarrassing moment
• There are three posts with zero comments, including my first one
• The post I am proudest of is this one where I talk about being a father and writer
• My least commented on humor post, which I thought was among my best written, is this one
• My best title for a post is, Your toddler is Full of Crap
• My most motivational post is the one where I asked what the history of your every day is?

My biggest regret to date is that I haven’t been more active on other blogs. I really do try to keep up with everyone who visits here and comments. However, at the moment, I must put most of my time towards searching for a job. I’ve been out of work since June and things are getting tight. Some might argue that I shouldn’t blog at all, but I NEED to keep my writing fresh if I want another writing job. I hope that nobody has taken it personally that I’ve not commented on their blogs more often. I hope to change that soon. Besides, I have a whole bunch of NEW blogs to read now!

I must learn to better balance my reading and writing time.

Looking ahead

Looking ahead, I’m still refining what I want BloggerDad to be. I’m attempting to make the site more user friendly. I added some new WordPress plugins including a Top Commentator and Most Recent Comments features in the sidebar. I also added the option to go back and edit your comments within five minutes of submitting them, which will allow people to avoid typos or retract particularly incendiary comments (I’m talking to you, Dave Fowler!). If there are any other features that you feel will enhance your visit here, feel free to suggest them to me.

In the future, this site will continue to do what it’s doing. I will post certain items on a more regular schedule, as I do with Eight Questions on Wednesdays. I may also write a bit more motivational type stuff, though I haven’t determined if that will be a separate blog. Maybe you can tell me.

There is one change which will be coming as soon as next week. I’d tell you more, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise. Let’s just say it will be fun.

Well, I’m beat. Today has been busy. I don’t know how Barbara does it!

as always, thank you for reading,

Blogger Dad

(the end of this post has been edited. See my comment below for an explanation)

So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we’ll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.”

~Clive Barker – from the novel Sacrament

Why do I blog?

Barbara of the excellent Blogging Without a Blog asked Friday what bloggers would be doing if they weren’t blogging. I said I would probably be drawing my comic more frequently or completing one of several unfinished (hell, unstarted) novels.

The other bloggers’ answers were varied but the results led Barbara to determine that for many of us, we blog to fill a void in our lives. Which led to the follow-up entry which poses the question, what does blogging give us that we aren’t getting from our everyday life?

I hadn’t thought about this before.

After giving it much thought, I decided that I blog because it delivers an immediate response to what is oftentimes a solitary profession, writing. I enjoy the feedback, witty banter and conversation with readers. This is something that I feel is unique to blogging.

While I wrote for a newspaper for three years, I seldom got immediate feedback. Usually when readers responded to things, it wasn’t until days or weeks after the fact. Oftentimes, stories were forgotten as soon as the reader turned the page.

This didn’t bother me when the article was a ‘just-the-facts’ quick news story. However, when it was a column I’d written or something I spent a lot of time and effort on, I wanted a response. I wanted to talk to people about how the story/column affected them or perhaps hear them talk about the subject of the piece. However, when you work for a newspaper, most readers’ reactions will remain a mystery to the writer.

Typically, an author doesn’t get a feel for reader reaction until long after the book has been written. And by the time you have a feeling for what the readers thought, you’ve likely moved on to the next book.

While I mostly want to be known as an author of  horror and suspense novels, I don’t know that I can give up the immediacy of blogging.

So, why does it matter what other people have to say? Chances are decent if you and I met in real life, we might never think to start up a conversation. So, why should I care what you have to say?

Part of it is curiosity about you, getting to know others, learning new things. But I must confess that part of it is also ego. I’d like to think I was above such things as selfish as ego. But, I’m not. I want to write things that you enjoy. As I wrote in a prior post, I want to create worlds where people will lose themselves. In the end, I guess, I just want to be liked for something that is uniquely me.

God, that is painful to admit. It’s like exposing an open wound for the world to see.

So, yeah, that is why I blog. Because I want you to like me.

So, why do you blog? (Since this is Barbara’s question, feel free to answer on her blog, first. Then you can come back and answer here if you’d like)

As always, thanks for reading.

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The site you are reading was almost called something else.

When I first decided to write a regular blog, I was considering a few different ideas. One was to continue the blog I’ve been writing for a few years which appears with my comic, Todd and Penguin. Another was to start a new blog and new journal comic. Another idea, and the one I chose, was to simply start over with something different. I’ve wanted to write regularly about parenting since my son was born in 2007.

I had a few names I was considering. The one I liked most was WriterDad.com and surprisingly it was available. As anyone who has ever bought a domain name knows, finding a good available domain name can be difficult. Especially when the name is made of common words like writer and dad. I was this close to purchasing the domain (holds index finger and thumb about a quarter inch apart), but I wasn’t sure if the name was right for the topics I wanted to write about. In fact, I wasn’t even certain WHAT I wanted to write about yet. I’d just been laid off from my dream job as a reporter and I was going through an emotional rollercoaster trying to decide among dozens of ideas.

After lots of careful (perhaps too much) consideration, I decided what I want this site to be. However, when I went to purchase the domain, I discovered that it had been bought! Some jerk bought MY domain name!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an idea for a comic or domain name, only to find that someone else already owned it and was wasting it. Right now, there is some blogger holding a name to one of my other comics, who hasn’t posted in more than a year! And it drives me crazy to see the domain wasted while I’m forced to use a longer url.

So, I decided to visit WriterDad.com just to see how this jerk was wasting bandwidth. Imagine my surprise to find not only a great website from a guy who can really write, but also a site which motivates and touches the soul!

And, the guy isn’t even a jerk!

In fact, he’s a pretty nice guy who I’ve had a chance to talk with via email. He’s also agreed to be my first interview subject in an upcoming post here.

Like I said, its funny how things work out. My inaction allowed someone else to snatch a name I wanted. Yet, if I had bought the name first, I would never have discovered WriterDad’s work, and that would’ve been my loss.

As a result, I was forced to go with my second choice for a name. And now that I’ve had the name for a week or so, I’ve come to embrace it. It fits the nature of this site.

I am BloggerDad.