How to (not) Write a Blog: Biggest Blogging Mistakes

Blog Mistake Number One: Poor Title

The best way to keep readers from enjoying your awesome posts is to write a poor title.

Amancay Maahs (Creative Commons)

Your title should engage the reader, build value and provide them with a possible answer to a question they’ve always wanted to know. For instance, you’re reading this post (most likely) simply because of the title “How to (not) Write a Blog: Biggest Blogging Mistakes.”

For some great tips on writing engaging headlines, check this out.

Blog Mistake Number Two: Distracting Errors

If you wint your credibulit to be shot to the wall, make stupid errors just the ones’ in this sentence

Distracting aren’t they?

Tip: if you’re not great at catching grammatical errors, have someone who is gifted in that arena proofread your posts before hitting that publish button.

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Living a Better Creative Story

I heard about a guy once who wrote a book about his journey and other things and a lot of his sentences started like I started this one.

***

The grammar, incomplete sentences and all the boring (but geekily important) stuff about writing correctly drove me nuts while reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.


But I cried a bit at the end.

Yeah, I cried.

All the rambling sentences aside. It’s a good story. It’s a great story. It’s a transformative story.

Here’s a bit of a new story. Told in his style.

Ala Donald Miller

Sometimes I wonder if all this spectating isn’t good for me. I watch TV. Go to a show. Read a book. Laugh at a movie. I’m enjoying it all. I’m relaxing. It’s great.

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Between Start and Finish

Beginning. Middle. End.

The basics of story in three words.

Actually… the basic plot of life exists in those three words as well.

Beginning.

Middle.

End.

So where do we spend most of our time?

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Creativity and Comfort Zone

Your contribution to this site energizes and inspires.

Credit: Shawn Patrick Connelly (Creative Commons)

Recently, your fellow creatives wrote several fantastic post-worthy comments in response to a post about creativity and comfort zones (original post and comments here).

Here are a few notables…

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From Scrollwork:

You asked two questions: Can we create in a comfort zone? Aren’t there ways we MUST be comfortable to create?

For me, as a writer and indie clothing designer, the creation happens twice, first in my head, then in real life. I get images or phrases in my head as I awaken or shower—definitely comfortable states. I am still in non-judgmental mode.

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If Your Real Christmas Tree Could Talk

This isn’t quite what I’d expected, but I’m glad you picked me.

I guess I was thinking it would end sooner than this. Ya know, that I’d be in the fireplace by now or whittled into something.

Anything but this.

How did this all start? With you guys bringing teenaged trees inside your homes and putting this junk on us?

So odd.

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Write a Love Letter to a Grocery Store

As Madonna once said “express yourself.” Even if you don’t like Madonna, sometimes you just gotta write a love letter.

It doesn’t matter to whom.

It doesn’t matter the content.

It doesn’t matter the status of the relationship. Surely there’s something or someone or someplace or some                 that you love.

My wife and I write and vlog about stuff we love on our blog/vlog A Couple Comments. Here’s our most recent love letter… to Trader Joe’s grocery store.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4C3P0jPrT4]

 

Who deserves your love letter? What will it say?

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The Writer’s Toolbox, an Exercise in Creative Bravery

My wife, ever the cheerleader (thanks babies!), bought me a wonderful gift that I didn’t bother to even open. How rude. Yes, but the time had to be right. Tonight’s the night!The gift, The Writer’s Toolbox, by Jamie Cat Callan, is both a book(let) and several simple inspiring exercises to get the brain jogging into the land of twists, turns, conflicts, descriptions, and plots.

Today’s exercise: using the sticks!

1. Draw a “First Sentence” stick.” Write for a few minutes.
2. Draw a “Non-Sequitur” stick. Write a bit longer.
3. Draw a “Last Straw” stick.

Here’s what came out… my ‘sticks’ sentences are underlined.

***

On Tuesday, Margaret told me she liked the little oranges with the seeds better than the ones I bought.I hated her for that.

Her distaste for anything ‘unnatural’ drove me to commit mind murder, the likes of which I’d not experienced since grade school. Kenny Malich, not Margaret, was the object of my half-rage then, but it felt the same now as is did back at Glen Heights Elementary in Canton.

We were celebrating Thanksgiving. My parents made me a pilgrim-like collar out of four sheets of thick black construction paper cut to form a circle around my neck. Sticking out awkwardly from my shoulders, the collar looked like a umbrella missing a few strands in it’s DNA. I pulled my socks over my pant cuffs and half way up my calf to further compliment my colonial-ness. There’s a shadowy memory of a hat and an odd belt buckle, but I can’t be certain at present. My costume, though complete, was anything but authentic, real, and natural.

Kenny was an indian. Oh yes, he got it all. He had the moccasins, the war paint, and even a hatchet. So cool. They were all the read deal too. Even the hatchet.

So why did I hate him and why did Margaret’s comment about the seeded clementines set me reeling back to childhood?

“You could make a living doing that kind of thing.” I suppose I could, but I had never thought about it, until then.

Produce aisle. Frozen for who knows how long. Holding oranges. I didn’t even know if I was blinking. It could’ve been five seconds or ten minutes. From the looks of my meager audience, my journey to elementary school and back to my seeded clementine selection had transformed me into a stick-figured mime.

I should’ve passed a hat and collected a few bucks.

“Yeah, well, woulda coulda shoulda ya know.” It was the first thing that came to mind. I would’ve felt more comfortable walking out of the grocery store half naked.

Maybe she felt that way because of the oranges, maybe she just didn’t like me because I forgot to pay her back for one too many lattes. Perhaps she even felt the same way I did about Kenny.

The past seems to be sinking down on all of us Margaret.

****
Got the creative juices going!
Try it. I dare you.

To Write, Not to Write?

No one wants to read a blog post when a person is just writing to write a blog post.

Right now, that person might (just might) be me. I have nothing to say, therefore, I am done.

So many people have something to say, and no physical voice to say it.

Like Roger Ebert.

Sarah told me about his story tonight. How thyroid cancer had ruined his voice. Consequently, for some time during his recovery, he wasn’t able to eat food properly. One of his requests: to have his friends/family describe food to him–the bubbles of soda, the heat of the spices etc.

Vicarious descriptive sensory image extravaganza.

To write, or not to write? Just do it. Write.

Ok–now I’m done. Hmmm. I guess I had something to say.