b0r1s / Flickr

“There are a lot of stupid people out there … and stupid people shouldn’t write.”

“There needs to be a better system for tuning down the stupid people and tuning up the smart people.”

– Jason Calacanis: “Blogging Is Dead” & Why “Stupid People Shouldn’t Write”

I completely disagree.

This blog of mine is pretty effing stupid from time to time; in fact, I think that as you dig back through the archive, you’ll find that my stupidity increases.

But that’s the point.

Blogging and writing on a daily basis makes you better — not just a better writer, but better educated on a given topic — and to say that “stupid people shouldn’t write” is to say that no one should ever improve. I’m sure Jason Calacanis has written some pretty stupid things in his day, too.

So, to recap, my advice for the day is: Go be stupid.

ruminatrix / Flickr

I was this close to publishing a post entirely different from this one. I had written it the other day; I flipped open my laptop about 10 minutes ago, read over the post and…it sucked. I mean, it seemed genius when I wrote it the other day, but it sucked.

Two lessons here:

1. Whenever possible, give your posts 24 hours to marinate and reread before you publish them.
2. Don’t be afraid to trash them altogether.

I’m a better writer and blogger for chucking that crap piece on the scrap heap. You will be, too.

Go to Google and start querying questions…if I worked in the motorcycle gear industry I might go to google and begin searching for “what is the best motorcycle” – DON’T HIT ENTER – then just watch the suggestions come back. BINGO, now you got topics.

via How to produce 2-3 quality blog posts in 1 hour a month | Seer Interactive SEO Blog.

The first bunch I saw was a collection of journal entries from the day Hearst announced the old P-I was going to be sold:

Something Swartz said made me tear up a little. Just a little. For the first time that day. What he said, it had something to do with people. With everyone gathered around. And it was the first of many times today that I would feel the weight of what was coming in the lives of everyone gathered around me. My God. No.

(Note: She’s talking about Steve Swartz, the president of Hearst Newspapers at the time. Actually, he may still be president.)

Anyone who follows Mónica’s work knows she’s pretty willing to share, but she said on Twitter that she’s using her Intersect account to share more personal items.

The second post wasn’t so much a bunch of journal entries as ruminations on her job as a reporter at The Houston Chronicle:

I started a couple days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans — as a cops reporter. About 150,000 evacuees would fill the city and crime would spike.

And:

I called the police press department too much and asked too many questions. I imagined when I hung up, they made fun of me.

I mention these posts not just because Mónica’s a Seattle journalist and someone I’ve looked up to as a journalist, but because they’re interesting and because they’re personal, which is something that journalism is often not.

A lot of journalists stick to the old rules that one should never make oneself part of a story, or, at least, one should avoid it at all costs. But read Mónica’s journals — they’re striking in their honesty and paint a fuller picture of where she was and what was going on.

Source: HamburgerJung's Flickr page

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you’ve probably got a folder in your RSS reader packed full of subscriptions to blogs that follow your same niche. That’s good—it’s smart to keep up with your area of interest. But it’s a good idea to wander outside of your usual haunts on a regular basis. Two reasons:

1. You avoid the echo chamber

2. You’ll have more original ideas

I thought I might list a few of my favorite non-journalism blogs to give an idea of what inspires my writing:

Kitsune Noir

“…an art and design blog that dabbles in music, movies, food & fashion, all filtered through the brain of Bobby Solomon.”

This may be one of my favorite blogs period. I found it via the handy Explore option in Google Reader and I’ve been loving it ever since. It is what the tagline says and the most important part is the “filtered through the brain of Bobby Soloman” part. This guy’s just got an eye for cool stuff. A lot of the visuals he picks out have inspired me to incorporate my own visuals into this blog lately (scroll through my recent archives—every post has had at least one photo with it) and to not really care if what I’m saying doesn’t sound easy-to-read or whatever. Bottom line when you’re running a blog is that it’s yours, so make it something you like first, then worry about traffic and all that other crap.

Conversation Marketing and Copyblogger

“Common sense internet strategies” and “Copywriting tips for online marketing success” (respectively).

Speaking of “all that other crap,” these two blogs have been invaluable. Once I’ve been inspired and have produced some content, I like to take some time to hone it and make it as nimble and effective as possible—that’s where advice from these guys comes in. I think of them as the editors-I-no-longer-have. They’ve helped out tremendously with advice on how to craft text for the Web and also with SEO headline writing—great for me, since those are things I use on this blog and in my day-to-day at the office.

Lookout Landing, USS Mariner and Geoff Baker’s Mariners Blog*

(A bunch of Seattle Mariners blogs.)

These are just straight-up for fun. Your RSS Reader can’t be all work, all the time—you have to have something to unwind with. Sure, you’ve got books and all, too, but what’s nice about just-for-fun blogs is that you’ll probably accidentally soak up some advice that’ll help you improve your own blog. What makes your for-fun blogs so enjoyable? And what about that can you copy over to your own blog? (For the record, I could do better at this. The only thing I’ve really ‘ported from my Mariners bloggers is, in fact, the Mariners.)

*For more on Geoff Baker’s blog as it relates to blogging and journalism, see this fanboy post I did a while back.

This first one isn’t anything too revolutionary, but it works really well for the blog I found it on. It’s really simple: The blog is called Top 5 and each day it picks a topic (Bikes, for example) and posts five photos that relate to said topic:

The idea of the post, of course, is dependent on good content to back it up (in this case—*great* photos).

The second one, from GigaOM, reminded me of the stylized text videos recently explored by Adam Westbrook:

This is just a small sample of the post—do yourself a favor and click through.

Breaking the mold doesn’t stop at print and broadcast. If you want to set yourself apart from the pack and truly distinguish yourself as a journalist or as a source of journalism (or anything for that matter) you have to throw all your rules and comforts out the window.

Don’t be surprised if you see me borrow one or both of these formats on this blog.

I pull most of my blogging ideas from five different sources that vary in their chronological frequency. I’ll go in descending order of frequency for the first four and save the “out of left field” one for last:

1. Twitter (right now)

Most of the stuff I pull from Twitter goes into category No. 3—at least if I feel inspired enough to blog about whatever I’ve seen. Sometimes I’ll blog right away, but usually I’m at work (my real job) so it gets saved for later. If I have any “can’t lose” thoughts, I’ll jot them down in an e-mail, subsequent Tweet or blog draft and come back to them later.

2. Google Reader (today/last week or so)

I’m probably as guilty of anyone of letting Google Reader fester for weeks at a time every now and then, but I try to keep up with it as best as possible. Since I subscribe to a ton of feeds, I skim using list view and “Option 3″ (or 4) anything that I can’t get to right away. I don’t know how anyone survives—creatively, organizationally or otherwise—without an RSS reader of some sort.

3. Instapaper (last week/last few weeks)

I just recently discovered Instapaper, but it’s grown on me quick. It’s a great tool for when I’m otherwise swamped, but still incidentally picking up bits and pieces from The Stream. A simple click of my “Read Later” bookmarklet drops whatever item I’m interested in into my Instapaper queue and I get to it the next time I have a few free minutes.

4. Publish 2/Delicious (months/years ago)

These are long-term storage devices and I use both because I really do value the links I collect. (Specifically, I use the Publish 2 bookmarklet and duplicate most all of my links into Delicious, just in case.) When stuff goes in here, I’m thinking either, “Good read, worth passing along, but I’m not inspired enough to write just yet,” or, “I know I’ll need this five months from now, so into the file cabinet it goes.” Every so often when I’m feeling uninspired, I’ll click through my tags and see what jumps out.

5. Anything that isn’t the Internet (any time frame)

Some of my favorite posts that I’ve written have come from things that have nothing to do with journalism or blogging (re: “Star Trek” and “Lost“). I like them because they feel the most creative—here I am sitting around watching a “Star Trek” preview and I think, “Ooh—this is sorta like journalism!” (which also marks an odd feat in branding myself a “Star Trek” and journalism geek in the exact same moment). They also break up the “expected-ness” of my blog.