badexample.new.mu.nu

September 28, 2006

FREE BLOG CONTENT

Got nothing to post?

Going out of town, but can't find a guest blogger?

Wish you had something new on your blog every day, but don't want the hassle of daily posting?

Word of the Day
Article of the Day
This day in history
Today's birthday
In the News
Quotation of the Day
Match Up
Hangman

All available - just need to slap the code in your template, and you'll give people something to do while they're waiting for you to post.

Or you can just ignore your readers and hope they'll go away, like I do.

[Hat tip to blogdaughter Michele of Letters From New York City for sending me the link]

Posted by: Harvey at 09:19 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 105 words, total size 1 kb.

September 26, 2006

ON SELF-CENSORSHIP

Blogdaughter Tammi of Tammi's World ponders a bit on how blogging changes for you after you've met some of your readers:

I find myself holding back on what I write. I don't speak my mind as easily. [...] I don't always hit publish. I worry about what "people think". Some how, some where it became more about other people. Worryin' about how they saw me, how my feelings were being viewed. I actually worried about what people were saying about me.

I know the feeling. When I first started blogging, my posts were sort of an open letter, but I did have an "ideal reader" in mind. Someone who would just accept my words and not use them against me personally. A good, non-judgmental friend.

As I've met some bloggers in real life, the target of my "open letter" has become more concrete and less ideal. I know who's reading this, and I know that some things I write may touch sore spots.

It sometimes makes things a bit uncomfortable. And maybe I avoid harsh treatment of certain topics out of courtesy.

But I will say this: there have been times when I've thought "Should I post this? Is this too much?", yet every time I've hit "publish" on one of those, the reaction has been one of understanding - of "I've been there too".

It's scary while you're waiting for the comments to arrive, not knowing if someone will take you to task over what you've written, but you grow from pushing through that fear.

And you find out you're not alone.

My short advice on the topic is this. Write what you want. Then go ahead and imagine the possible objections you think certain readers might have to it. If you're willing to face those objections and you're willing to explain and/or justify what you said, go ahead & publish, then wait for the outraged responses.

You probably won't get them.

If you do, well, you're already prepared.

And if you explain your position calmly and rationally, you might even win some people over. It's happened to me before.

However, if things go horribly wrong and there's bickering and trolling, all is not lost. You still have friends to watch your back. As AlliCadem of Can I Have Some Whine With That Cheese? said in Tammi's comments "when you get an intruder, your blog family comes to the rescue".

Thank God for blog family...

Posted by: Harvey at 08:54 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 409 words, total size 2 kb.