There is a state of mind we bipolar bears enjoy that is not quite normal but not quite hypomanic. It is not without a complete sense of good sense or sound judgment, nor is it imbued with the seductive lure that steals us into heady extremist land. It is a state of mind that permits a thunderous productivity to proceed uninhibited by the distractions and flood of narration that the manic mind often presents. The half hypo, half normal state is calm, collected and level headed, more or less. Yes, we might talk more, walk more, do more, eat less, sleep less and indulge a little too much in life’s luscious trappings. But we are not out of control, without reason or incumbent with agitation. Perhaps we get a little more adventurous, are less adverse to taking risk, but it is not in the gargantuan proportion of a mortgage or a credit card maxed to the hilt. It’s an inspired state that can be directed and harnessed to constructive and gratifying tasks, that in the manic state becomes lost in equally inspired yet unequally purposeful schemes. It is a state be to valued and relished, to be taken advantage of – but also observed as a warning of the dangers that may come. It is a time to be cautious and mindful that all could be lost, should this high, really take off.
To have a successful blog you’re meant to choose a blog niche, a single topic or area of closely related topics and develop a readership around that topic. This blog does not do that. This blog contains posts about a whole range of topics that interest and energize me. I don’t expect to develop a loyal readership and I don’t care, because that is not my aim. My aim is to write. To develop and improve my writing while exploring my interests. To educate, inform, challenge and entertain with my words, and that’s it.
This aim is heretical in blogging circles. To most bloggers, there is no point in having a blog if you don’t have a loyal and regular readership subscribed to your RSS feed. Most visitors to this blog will be from search engine traffic. I’m all for random one off traffic. If one person learns something from a post on PMDD and another person downloads a free mp3 and neither subscribe to the feed, that’s fine. They’ve both benefited from the blog and found it useful – surely that is a success in of itself.
I do not need to follow blog rules about finding a niche to have an interesting and useful blog. It just won’t be “successful” in terms of the accepted norm. Why not diversity the meaning of “success” in the blogosphere? If someone is searching the internet for information on how to treat PCOS related acne, and they find the solution on my blog – that’s success. If someone is looking for information on a band they can’t find anywhere else but find it here – that’s success. For this blog, success is not about having 10,000 subscribers. If I achieve my goal by writing about the things I want to, and a googler achieves his/her goal by finding information on the specific thing he or she is after, we’ve both had a successful outcome.
You might ask, if I blog about PCOS and music, why not have a separate PCOS blog and music blog? The reason is I’d have to create 5 to10 blogs to cover all the things I write about, and some topics just don’t generate enough material to warrant a dedicated blog. I do have other blogs and they follow the successful blogging formula to some degree, but not this one and that’s fine.
If you are going to write about unrelated topics on the one blog, however, there are a few important things you can do to help your visitors and readers. One is to create categories for each topic you write about and use them effectively. When the punk nerd comes to my blog to download a rare live track, he does not want to find a post about my monthly menstrual blood harvest. Another useful thing you can do is create an RSS feed for each category. Having a single feed is fine, but it’s unlikely that some one who is interested in music posts will also want to read about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. So it would be wise to create a feed for the categories you blog about regularly. I haven’t done this myself, but, it’s a good idea.
If you just want to write for pleasure and not glory, for your own development as a writer and not subscriber numbers, the most effective way to create an “unsuccessful blog” is to not choose a niche and enjoy your writing and blogging freedom.
At Kanas State University Dr. Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist, teaches Digital Ethnography. Ethnography is basically a research method used to conduct descriptive studies of human societies and cultures. In this presentation at the Library of Congress, Dr. Wesch takes us inside the culture of YouTube which he explores with his group of undergraduate students.
‘Digital Ethnography and the Anthropology of YouTube’ is a fun presentation and a good demonstration of how anthropology, a discipline some perceive to only apply to the study of cultures past, is also the study of cultures current and emerging. I would think that in this digital age it would be an exciting time to be an anthropologist!
While watching this presentation I kept thinking about Erving Goffman’s book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and how the ideas contained therein could be utilized in a study of the presentation of self on YouTube, especially in relation to vblogs. As a sociologist with a keen interest in self and identity, I concur with Dr. Wesch when he says YouTube is a fascinating place for those who share this interest.
You can also view the post about this video on Professor Wesch’s blog. The video he produced which he refers to in this presentation can be viewed here.
One of the most exciting elements of the hit BBC series Spooks is that it is often filmed on the streets of London amongst real people. Working with a small crew the actors perform their roles right in thick of the hustle and bustle of daily London life. This approach to filming grounds the ambitious plots in a genuine sense of reality that would otherwise be difficult to achieve. The resulting visual authenticity aids in minimizing any possible implausibilities of the intricate story lines for which Spooks is renown.
I don’t believe in Christmas, but I do believe in presents. And taking pictures of said presents, apparently. I recently bought a new camera. It’s a DSLR, an upgrade from my point and shoot Powershot. I figure the best way to figure out how to use it is to force myself to take pictures every week. So we begin..
