Free Blogging Advice – Harmonia Philosophica

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 4: From whom are you writing?

Free Blogging Advice: Writing is hard. And easy. The goal of the Free Blogging Advice (FBA) series of short articles is to provide some free advice on… blogging! All you have to add is some time and effort. And love. Lots of love.

FBA Episodes

There comes a time where any blogger wonders…

“Why am I doing this?”

This question can arise more than once in the beginning of your blogging endeavor and it will also come up later in time after you have established yourself as a known blogger. (or I would better say it SHOULD come up again after you have succeeded as a blogger – more on that later on)

Not being able to answer that simple question usually ends up in full demotivation and eventually to the end of your dream to become a blogger and share your ideas with the world.

But is there a right answer for that question?

Truth be told, there is not.

But there are many wrong ones.

Aristotle once very intuitively said that “the question contains the answer”…

This couldn’t be more applicable here.

Some say they are blogging for their followers…

That is so nice. Except that if you are writing for the ones who read you, then you will inevitably become just a puppet belonging fully to them. A writer does not care about who reads him. He (or she) simply writes whatever is in his head just… because! Creativity is a deeply irrational urge, not a calculative urge to gain more followers or retain the ones you have. Van Gogh only sold one painting while he was alive.

Some say that they are blogging to share knowledge…

Some say they are blogging because of other reasons…

That is the great trap though. That you need a reason to blog.

If blogging does not come from deep inside you, there is no reason you should be doing it in the first place. If you need a reason to blog, then you should stop right now. Because the moment that reason seizes to exist, that will be the moment when everything will look useless and futile. And a true writer never sees his (or her) work as futile or useless! Pure creation is never done under special conditions or within specific context. It just flows out from you.

Search within you.

Imagine yourself after many years blogging.

Having written thousands of posts.

With zero followers.

Zero page views.

Will you be happy?

Will you feel full?

Only you can answer that.

And when you answer this question you will understand.

Why everyone asking “Whom am I writing for?” is simply trying to find a reason not to…

Free Blogging Advice: Embrace imperfection!

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One of the things bloggers find difficult to cope with, is the fact that their site is not perfect.

Most of us are perfectionists, especially when it comes to the child of our creativity. Our site should be flawless, full of perfect articles, with embedded perfect pictures, saying perfect things.

The truth is much more different than that though.

Every human is imperfect. We constantly change and grow, we learn and forget, we are literally a new person every passing second as Harmonia Philosophica has explained more than once in various philosophical contexts.

How do you expect your blog to be perfect?

Being perfect was never the goal in the first place.

The goal is to expose your thoughts to the cosmos. To let out your thoughts and give others the opportunity to get to know them. Perhaps even reply back and establish a community wandering about the same things.

A blog is a window that exposes your soul to the world.

Trying to believe that what others see through that window needs to be perfect is simply a denial of your very nature. No matter how much you try to make things perfect, there will always be things that could be done better, small spelling mistakes, broken links or missing images.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you must not do your best to have a perfect site. I am just emphasizing the fact that if this is the first and only thing you care about you will indeed have a perfect unpublished site…

Blogging is about letting go.

Blogging is about having fun.

And who can have fun while trying to play everything to perfection?

Experiment!

Write!

Love what you do!

Your blog will ALWAYS be imperfect!

That is what makes is so perfect…

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 3: Develop your story.

FBA Episodes

Now that we have decided to start writing (see previous episodes), we need to develop the story of our site.

Story: The narrative that describes the intent of your blog. The story will explain to the visitor why he or she is here, what they should expect to read and what the blog will offer them.

You need to publish the story in your About page. In that way you will establish the identity of your site for anyone to see.

But what should a story look like? First of all it needs to be simple. If you do not have it clear in your head then your readers will be confused as well (and most probably will not come back to you site).

Secondly, it needs to be emotional. Emotions is what drive the world around and you need to invest in the emotions of your readers to capture their interest.

Last but not least, your story needs to be a… story! What I mean by this is that you need to convey your message to your readers through an actual story, i.e. an anecdote, a tale that will have a hero, a problem that her or she needs to overcome, a climax and a resolution. This is easier said than done. But you need the story element in order to reach to your readers with a compelling and attractive way. Just stating what your site is about is not enough. If you just just wrote down the goal of your site like a corporate statement then it would look like a… corporate statement. You need more than that to engage with the visitor of your blog.

Stories captivated us when we were children. And still do. Everyone likes a good story. It is more probable to remember something that you heard in a story than something you just read.

As an example you can read the story of Harmonia Philosophica here. It is a short one, as a story for a site must be. And it tries to convey the message of this site, i.e. that being irrational and non-thinking is the best way to think.

Whether you like it or not is another story…

To be continued…

Free Blogging Advice (FBA) – Episode 2: What to write about…

FBA Episodes

So you made the decision to start writing.

The world is split in two categories of people: Creators and consumers.

You chose to be the first. Good for you!

But now that you did, there comes the first big decision that you must make: What to write about?

There exist millions and millions of possible things that can be the subject of a good blog/ site. From philosophy to cooking, from military aviation up to jokes for atheism and religion. How do you choose?

The answer: You do not!

If you already have made up your mind to write (see Episode 1), it is most probable (almost certain actually) that you have already made that decision without knowing it!

Wanting to write is always accompanied by the urge to write about something specific. Do not try to analyze what will have the greatest potential for more readers, or what is more viral these days. Don’t lose time trying to figure out what subject is the most promising when it comes to attracting viewers in your site and do not spend time thinking what subject would be more amazing to show to your fiancé (or fiancée).

Creating content is all about you!

And your heart already knows what it loves.

Just stop thinking and listen to your self.

(I know what I like…)

This is your subject!

No matter how weird or niche this subject might be, the basic advantage is that it is what you like! And this makes it not only an excellent choice but also the only choice at hand! You can only sustain writing about what you really love. Anything else is just work. But with blogging you want to enjoy yourself! And what better way to do that than by writing about things you enjoy writing about? (Yes, this is a tautology and that is why it is true – read more Harmonia Philosophica about this)

And who knows…

You passion for what you love might one day convert that small blog into a multi-million dollar business.

(Although I would never recommend that, but we will speak more on that in another episode)