Blog topics are a bit like trying to hit the 7-10 split in bowling - you can play it safe and get one pin, always knowing you won't get the best score, or you can try something radical to knock both down and risk getting no points for your efforts.
I've written some posts that have gotten a lot of traffic - indie publishing, bits on the way traditional publishers are acting like morons, and my well known antipathy for literary agents. Each of these posts have gotten lots of traffic. However, they also present a problem - how do you top the last post? How do you keep people involved when you just spent your wad on a controversial or engaging topic?
You can't be titillating all the time. Some of the stuff I get the urge to write about can just be boring. So, should you swing for the fences every time? What happens when you continue to miss? Do people start abandoning you because you aren't as provocative as you used to be, or because your controversial stuff makes them yawn?
I know that I usually ask these questions with a ready retort in mind, but not this time. I honestly don't have an answer to this conundrum. I want to get people talking, but I can't be that guy known as Crazy Uncle Joe(you know...the dude trying to talk about the moon landings being fake or how the first President Bush was really from a reptilian alien species). I want to be legitimately provocative rather than doing shock-jock kind of stuff. So, how do you do that? And when you come up with a great topic, what do you do for an encore? Are you better playing it safe, or are you better being wild? And just how wild can you be before you drift into loony bin territory?
I've written some posts that have gotten a lot of traffic - indie publishing, bits on the way traditional publishers are acting like morons, and my well known antipathy for literary agents. Each of these posts have gotten lots of traffic. However, they also present a problem - how do you top the last post? How do you keep people involved when you just spent your wad on a controversial or engaging topic?
You can't be titillating all the time. Some of the stuff I get the urge to write about can just be boring. So, should you swing for the fences every time? What happens when you continue to miss? Do people start abandoning you because you aren't as provocative as you used to be, or because your controversial stuff makes them yawn?
I know that I usually ask these questions with a ready retort in mind, but not this time. I honestly don't have an answer to this conundrum. I want to get people talking, but I can't be that guy known as Crazy Uncle Joe(you know...the dude trying to talk about the moon landings being fake or how the first President Bush was really from a reptilian alien species). I want to be legitimately provocative rather than doing shock-jock kind of stuff. So, how do you do that? And when you come up with a great topic, what do you do for an encore? Are you better playing it safe, or are you better being wild? And just how wild can you be before you drift into loony bin territory?
Wow ... I ask the same questions. I just sit ... look at the white ... know I have to fill it with words. Sometimes, those words come very hard :) I try to always think 'real' :) Gloria/Granny Gee
ReplyDeleteYet "real" can have extremes. Sadomasochism is real, but so is mopping a floor. I want to be in between those two. :-P
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