Wouldn’t it be wonderful for your children and grandchildren to read your blog? Okay, maybe not all of it, but your best posts, those which have touched upon matters that are precious to you, or that have informed, entertained, or enlightened others. I don’t know if I’ll ever have children, let alone grandchildren, but if I do, I’d be happy if one day, when they have nothing better to do, they will check my blog. Meanwhile, let’s keep our blogs alive, shall we?
In my last post I wrote about blogging fatigue, how it afflicts us all, how it can be one of the major challengers we face as bloggers. Following that post, several people have asked me how old my blog is and what has kept me going – understandably so, since many blogs are abandoned months or even weeks after they are created.
I have been blogging for 4 years now – not bad for a high-school drop-out – and so I feel I have been around here for long enough to tell all the new bloggers reading this a thing or two about blogging continuity.
Make Your Blog Personal
This is the best way to keep your blog alive. If your blog isn’t personal, if it doesn’t touch on matters close to your heart, if it’s just about other people, news, events, or ideas, there’s a good chance you’ll become bored with it sooner or later. I’m not saying your blog should be a diary or necessarily autobiographical.
Only that whatever you blog about – even if it’s seemingly impersonal, like business, politics, technology, or ancient Greece – it has to be viewed through your eyes, and related to your own thoughts, feelings, experiences, and interests. It should be easily recognizable by anyone who knows you as a digital extension of your self.
Set a Posting Schedule
It can be once or twice a week – which is what I’ve done lately – or if you don’t have time, it can be even once every two weeks or once a month – it all depends on how much time you have and what blogging means to you. If you’re a spontaneous, whimsy, or dreamy person, you probably won’t like the thought of having a posting schedule, but such is our mind that if we set goals and deadlines, it is more active and performs better.
A posting schedule helps you turn blogging into a pleasant habit. So pick a day, and pick an hour, too, and write them down somewhere. And if the posting doesn’t come easy, force yourself a little. Consider blogging an exercise – in practicing your English, introspecting, musing, overcoming doubts and showing your artworks to the world, or whatever it is you are trying to do with your blog. Long-term blogging is a bit like mental weight lifting, and so it’s not always easy.
Write Posts or Create Content In Advance
Once blogging loses its sense of newness, it can feel like a chore, like work even. Your conscience encourages you to tend to it, but your mind has plenty of worries already and would rather lounge on Facebook or relax on YouTube. Blogging is more demanding than other social efforts because it requires creative energy.
This creative energy waxes and wanes, comes and goes… When you feel inspired, create not one post, but two. They can both be drafts. Then, when posting day comes, you have at least one draft to work into a post, and you can’t use writer’s block as an excuse.
Other things you can try
- Establish friendships with bloggers you like by commenting on their blogs and interacting with them – the social element of blogging can be even more encouraging than a posting schedule
- Invite guest bloggers to post on your blog
- Change your blog’s look and feel every now and then, bringing freshness to it
- Enable Publicize to share your blog posts on Facebook and other social media and constantly remind your friends and family about your blog
- Blog not only for yourself, but for others, too – if your posts have value for others, if at least one other person enjoys them and looks forward to them, you will be motivated to carry on
- Give me your blog address so I can check it out – you may win a new follower 🙂
Now let me ask you – for how long have you been blogging? And have you reserved a place for your blog in your future, or is it only a whim, a digital defense against boredom?
boy with a hat 
Sound advice 🙂
And it’d be fascinating if our blogs are still kicking about in fifty years or more, quite the curation.
Maybe they will even outlast our death – posthumous blogging for the win!
Thank you Vincent for your post and also for asking about your readers’ opinions on this. I started one and a half years ago on my main blog in English and as I became more confident I have started two others in Danish. One on BabyCare and one on my memoirs for my children and grandchildren. They don´t read it, (yet) but when I share the last one on a certain facebook page people my own age seem very interested because I write about things from their childhood and youth too. I have retired but it takes up a lot of time and thoughts on how to improve it. But I really enjoy it.
Keeping your memoirs for your descendants in blog format sounds interesting. Do you find that the format/features blogging offers as a medium helps you do that more easily than say an old-fashioned diary? And do you feel that it is safer, that is, less likely to get lost?
Thank you for asking Vincent! I use the blog format to be motivated to write and I love using photos and WP has a good quality for that. I know that when my time here on earth is over the blog can’t be maintained. So I will try to find out how to change the content to a book. I am sure that other people than just me would be interested
It’s an interesting topic and quite timely. I’ve been blogging for about 4 years and use it as a creative outlet. I post personal stuff mainly, have made a few blogging friends and enjoy the sense of community. I still don’t think I know that much about the actual blogging process apart from the basics and I’m happy with that at the moment. My family read my blog and one of my daughters says it enables her to learn more about me and how I tick. I’m happy for my blog to go on into the future. Thanks for the post!
hi Vincent, thanks for the invitation to give you my blog address. i hope you’ll check it out and make a comment. i’ve been blogging for a few months now. i blog once a week on a Sunday. i haven’t worked out yet whether to blog on a Sunday morning or a Sunday evening, because i live in Australia and there’s the difference in time zones to consider. like you, i am a high school drop out. i saw one of your blogs early on on Facebook when a friend of mine shared it. i enjoy what you write and the pictures are always beautiful. on WordPress i publish a Fortnightly Short Story (one of my own previously published stories), and a Fortnightly Writing Tips. i don’t get many comments, so i hope people enjoy my posts. i blog at libbysommer.wordpress.com Libby
“Fortnightly Short Story” – I can’t explain why, but I like that title. I think “a fortnight” has vanished from many people’s vocabulary these days, or is it more frequently used in Australia than in the UK or the US?
that’s an interesting thought: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, yearly. you don’t hear those terms very often, i guess. i’m glad you like the title ‘Fortnightly Short Story’. i hope you’ll read and comment on my Fortnightly Short Stories in the future. thanks for following me. much appreciated. i’m a new girl on the block here at WordPress.
Scheduling in your blog posts is an immensely powerful way to ensure you stay connected to your writing – not even your readers, but a connection to your own material and to your own feelings surrounding your subject. Great post, I look forward to reading more!
I feel motivated! I already made 6 drafts in my blog since you posted about the blogging fatigue.
Plan for my blog? As of now, I am on a free platform. Hopefully I can purchase a web hosting by next month. Still working on my budget. Been blogging for 6 months now and I want to take on the next level of blogging.
Thank you Vincent!
That sounds quite productive, Den. Having a custom domain does help – it’s a like a more engaging business card. But it’s not critical, you know. I think I waited about 1 year before I got mine. I do recommend it, though.
Beautiful piece of writing..
About me- I have been blogging since 2012, it has mostly been about writing and creating art as a means of expression.. I post my quotes and poems. Occasionally try my hand at short stories too..
My blog is an essential part of my being. I intend to continue blogging in the future.
Great post! Thanks for the refreshing read!
P.S: I blog at thecopperchick.wordpress.com
My blog is a year old, and I’ve been more of a spontaneous blogger than a scheduled one, and maybe it has affected the blog too. It’s time to make it regular I guess, and do a bit of homework instead of lazing about. Thank you for the post. 🙂
http://www.dashyspeaks.blogspot.in
I’d appreciate a visit ! 😀
I will visit, to hear the whispers of a “vagabond mind”. 🙂
I write for the invisible gift. It is what I look forward to. I go to the mailbox everyday expecting it to come in.
*quiet laugh*
What if you are looking for it in the wrong place? What if you have already received it and is somewhere in your mind, and you only have to recognize it, to say to it, “Hello, invisible gift, I can see you feelingly!” ? 🙂
I just got a tingle.
Thanks for this Vincent. Great motivation to keep going. I have been one of those spontaneous whimsicals that you wrote about, just posting when things come to me. Began free-form writing back in January which has really opened up some juicy , creative flow. Writing is a truly incredible journey. Never stop. Thank you again.
That’s the best part about your blog. Though we don’t know each other, I feel that I closely know you.
I love to read your posts and some of them are very helpful. I am a very new blogger. Just began this year.
And I would be glad if you visit my blog. I would truly appreciate that.
I blog at
https://tamannakalkal.wordpress.com/
Hi Vincent! Per yoour earlier permission, I scheduled this article as a guest post on May 19th. As usual, it includes your credit/bio/link. Thanks!
I reblogged this so that the few followers I do have will be encouraged to continue to write. It has encouraged me. Thank’s
Vincent… Real intellect cannot be measured by high scores and fancy degrees…which I can assure you is very true in your case…I mean when you keep saying you are a high-school dropout, it amazes me when you give sound content with great insight. One thing that I love about blogging is that I’ve got people whom I have never seen reading my stuff and caring to comment regularly on my works. I can’t think of a bigger honour and motivation. Having a blog definitely helps me flex my writing muscles which was a forgotten endeavour earlier. In fact I feel more alive and happier as a person to be a part of the blogging community.
You see, I guess I am a little proud of being a high-school drop-out. Not that I don’t believe in formal education – it is a great thing to have access to – but it can be interesting to stray off the beaten path.
Rightly said!
Hi, I have started blogging today and I’ve just discovered your blog with interesting articles! I’am trying to have new opinions about my project that brings art and fashion together. I had a good beginning with wordpress so far but I know I have a lot to improve in my writing to make it look and sound nicer. (especially because french is my mother language) So feel free to take a look at it and keep up your good work 🙂
Hi, Vincent! I am Faith from the Philippines and I like your blog posts…even you! I’ve been blogging since 2011 because our professor told us to. I started writing in my personal journal when I was eight before learning how to browse the internet and sign up for social media accounts (Friendster then Facebook).
Nice tips! Started my blog a month or so ago but I still don’t have a lot of followers or views, feeling kinda stuck at the moment
My blogging began in 2014 and I have kept going the one direction with it – all things botanical. The advice of 300-600 words is very sensible, although I would suggest that longer essays help one to think over and mull through interesting ways of doing things. The idea that content ought to be an extension of oneself in the world is helpful advice, as I could perhaps decide to move the content along from being about universal insights from my botanical experience, to something more of a documentary or commentary about places I find interesting botanically.
The migration to wordpress from the Caribbean Literary Salon was a big change – moving from a page with a local Caribbean moderator – to a fully automated blog meant that some older posts had to be discarded, and my readership became less Caribbean, less focused on cryptogamic botany education, and more Irish, local and less international in outlook.
Vincent you do a great job with your posts, and maintaining a large readership is a skill in itself, as well as getting over blog fatigue. In particular, the editing and sentence writing quality is such that you express ideas lucidly, succinctly and with your inimitable style of ponderous regard every time.
I am still playing with the idea of promotion with twitter (if the content is top quality), to supercede from facebook. When change is required in guiding how people should botanically interact with plants, it helps to explore other promotion platforms to find new audiences for ones growing ouvre of botanical posts.
Keep smiling & Easter greetings from Ireland !
Thanks for this post. It is really helpful, especially for a new blogger like me.Well, I see my blog lasting for a lifetime because it is a platform I want to use to air my views and impact lives positively. I want this to be one of the various ways I give back to the society, I guess. So I’m determined to keep my blog running despite the challenging career path I am venturing into. My blog is http://www.sunshinestreak.wordpress.com just in case you want to have a read. Thanks again for this post