Saturday, June 21, 2008

A first blog should be many things ...

Firstly, it should be informative. You can't very well grab that first time reader with just nonesense. No, it needs to be something with a little more substance. A breakdown of the communist philosophy, or interpretations of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It helps if you have some working knowledge of the arts ... then again, it's the internet and someone will believe you regardless of your credentials.

Secondly, and this is true with any written work, you need a good subject. 'Check out what my dog did last night' really just doesn't cut it. That could be any number of things - and most of the ones I can think of are downright disgusting.

Thirdly, you should set the tone for your later work. Some people like to write about things in a humorous light, while others really want to be taken seriously. Then again, even the people who want to be funny want to be taken seriously. What would you be writing a blog for if you didn't want people to take you seriously - if you really didn't care if anyone believed what you said or thought you were funny?

It'd probably be a diary. Or nothing. And I think a diary might kind of fall into that "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it did it really fall?" category for these reasons:

1) Most people that write in diaries don't make this public knowledge. If they did, it'd be a blog.
2) Diaries are made of paper - mostly - and paper comes from trees ... see where I'm going with that one?
3) No one cares about your stupid diary or that stupid 'philosophical' question.

Incidentally, lists are another great thing to add into your first blog. That's why I have one.

This is gonna be awesome. Or not awesome. Or even sometimes awesome. Hey, it's a start ...