Funny Things I've Learned From Blogging

I was over at Two Minutes In The Box where the always delightful GetkristiLove is celebrating her four year blogiversary. It got me wondering about how long I've been at this myself. A quick search of the archives shows that on April 21 of 2006, I penned my first entry for these glittery virtual pages. As you may have guessed it was about beer. It is rife with spelling and punctuation blunders, and contains very little of the "style" that my writing would later develop, should I ever be accused of having "style". I have however retained the spelling and punctuation errors.

Regardless, I am rapidly approaching my four year anniversary and with eight hundred and eighty-two posts under my belt, I feel like something of a veteran. That being said, I have to ask myself, "Have I learned anything?"

The honest answer is, "Not really", but there are a few things that I've picked up along the way and I'd like to share them so maybe you can dodge a few of the mistakes I've made.

1. If you are going to put up something that isn't work safe, warn your readers.

2. Never describe your genitals, your bowel movements, or your sex life in graphic detail. As interesting as you might find it, people just don't want to know. Also, don't provide pictures of any of the above.

3. It is okay to cuss and swear but use it sparingly or you will come off sounding like an uneducated idiot. Justin Wilson once said that there is no better exclamation point like a good Hell or a Damn, and this is true, but no one wants to read a long series of exclamation marks.

4. Never leave the Caps Lock button on. This is a cardinal no-no.

5. You can run your mouth on any subject you want but don't be surprised when someone leaves you a nasty comment. Unlike life, jerks in Blogdom do occasionally get their come-uppance.

6. You want some one to read your stuff, go read theirs. Simple as that.

7. Trying to post every day can and will burn you out. I've seen it happen. Often times it just shoves the good piece that you wrote yesterday further down the list to be replaced by the piece of fluff that you just threw up today.

8. Most people only read what's on top and don't scroll down. Some do, but not many.

9. If you keep at it, you are going to meet a lot of really cool folks that you wouldn't have any other way. With any luck, you'll make a lot of friends who will back you up when life hands you a sewer sandwich. Blogdom is a community of writers, and writers are a rare breed of animal that come in all sorts of stripes and colors, but share the common thread of the love of language and a big heart.

10. Not every post is going to be pure gold, so cut yourself some slack and others as well. Even Bill Shakespeare had off days where he just wanted to put up a Youtube video of his cat or photos of the meal he ate last night.

11. Most of all, try and make it funny if you can, because we could all use a good laugh.

Other than that, I haven't learned a damn thing. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE A CLOSE-UP PHOTO OF MY FUCKIN' GENITALS?

Doc