I’m going to give you a great example here with this first sentence of the kind of thing you will probably want to think about when setting up your blog, as it’s the kind of thing you might easily forget about doing when you’re writing your blog posts, or when you’re getting material ready to be looked at, or anything similar to that.

That sentence had sixty three words in it.

Which of those two above sentences do you think had more impact?  The short, declarative sentence? Or the huge, wordy one?  If you said the short one, then congratulations, because you just got a fast and easy lesson in blog writing.

The quicker your sentences, the better the memory of them lasts in your readers’ mind.  Just like when you were trying to stumble your way through that sentence above, you’ll get much better results out of short, declarative sentences. Naturally, not all of your sentences can be short ones.  Sometimes you’ll have no choice but to bust out a long one, just to get your point across.  But that shouldn’t stop you from trying.

The more shorter sentences you can get in a post, the better.

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So last night I had “You, Me and Dupree” in the background when I was writing, because a little background noise helps counter the thought that you’re just some kind of weird hermit-monk pounding away on a keyboard, and the ending featured Dupree hosting a seminar where he told everyone to go out and find their own -ness, rather their (insert your first name here)ness.

So your Georgeness, your Paulaness, your Rahulness–whatever your own -ness happens to be.

Now, after first glance that sounds like some crackpot self-help garbage made up by a half-baked comedy that desperately needed filler.  Until you think about it, of course, and then you realize that there’s something to that.  See, your -ness is a very big part of your blog.  Everything you write is filtered through the lens of your own perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and experiences.

And until you embrace this idea, you’re going to be trying to do half-baked news posts that have absolutely no flavor to them.  They may be filling and nutritious, they may contain helpful information, but if no one wants to read them, then what good are they?

Like vegetables no child will eat, your -ness is the Ranch dressing that turns broccoli from crunchy, fiber-rich unpleasantness to a tasty snack that’s good for you.

So when you’re setting up your next post, consider the value of your -ness.  It’ll give you a lot of extra help in writing.

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Folks, I, like most everyone else at one time or another, have found myself utterly bereft of things to write about.  I know!  Horrifying, isn’t it?  That even a font of genius like myself (not to mention humility!) could occasionally be stuck for an idea.

Usually when I’m stuck for an idea the best place to look is to other people, and today I found this idea.  When you’re stuck for an idea, write the speeches you’ve never given.

Now, there’s definitely a boost to the old credibility scale if you can be regarded as sufficiently expert to deliver what are called “panels” at conventions and the like.  If you’re name enough to deliver a panel address, then you’re a name, no mistake.  So why not start preparing now?  Think up a couple topics you’d like to deliver speeches on, and then write those speeches as blog posts.

You’ll get a little practice in order now, and by the time you’re said and done, you’ll have saved a little time when you become a big name.

So remember where you heard all this, because maybe someday, you’ll hear it again at a blogger’s convention, and you’ll all be pretty happy it didn’t take me long to deliver it.

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Huh?  What?

Don’t you love those little non-sequitur titles that just sneak up behind you and slap you upside the head with their message?  Sure you do!  But the point is clear–it’s time you stopped linking to Wired, or at least so often.

Plain and simple, when people read your blog, and they follow your links, and they start wondering if you just link to the same dozen sites over and over and over again, they start questioning if you’re worth reading.

See, links aren’t just about Google rank.  Links are also a measure of how well-read you are.  A measure of how much you get around online, so to speak, and if you’ve got lots of different places–even places no one’s ever heard of–you’ll get a bump in your credibility gauge if you can show people that you traffic in some unusual information.

There’s something to be said for being the guy who knows where the weirdest stuff on the internet is…as opposed to being the guy who can’t stop rewriting what Wired spits out.

So next time you want to find something to write about, don’t just stay on Google’s front page–go check out the back of the stacks.  You never know what you’ll find lurking around out there.

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Not everyone can set up their own blog, you know.  Not everyone has the kind of time or skill available to exercise proper promotion techniques and get the word out.  For those kind of people, those people who are essentially writing purists, there is always the option of blogging for someone else.  And there are three good reasons for doing so, which is especially useful since we’ve been talking about that all week so far.

1. More resources. You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do for money while you engage in promoting your blog and getting the adsense in play and getting other people to read the damn thing so you’re not shouting at an empty room.

2. Established (or establishing) audience. Again, the shouting at an empty room component of blogging is gone.  No more feeling like the crazy lady who talks to her cats all day!

3. Pure writing.  When you write someone else’s blog, your promotional duties become somewhat minimal.  You’re a content provider.  Oh, sure, you make up some contests or help out with Digg entries or something, to provide added value, but for the most part?  You WRITE. That’s it.

Take all these reasons together and you discover that blogging for someone else is a pretty good move.

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There are certain things that most every journalist is known for.  For instance, Woodward and Bernstein forever will be known as the guys that took out Nixon.  Stephen Glass was the guy who made up his articles.  Geraldo Rivera will always be remembered as the guy with the cheesy talk show who went after Al Capone’s vault.

It really doesn’t matter what else they do in life, and they’ve done plenty.  Stephen Glass turned novelist.  Geraldo tried to be a real journalist via Fox News and that still really isn’t working out for him.  Woodward and Bernstein went on to be an associate editor of the Washington Post and a biographer, respectively.

What will you be known for?  Chances are, if you’re a blogger, your big work is called the “killer article”.  Like a “killer app” but for blogs, the killer article is the one thing that keeps new people coming in and old people coming back.  It has the timeless quality we strive for, it’s not usually breaking news, but it takes several hours to concoct one of these and is usually three to four times longer than a normal blog post.

So if you want your blog to stake a claim in the blogosphere, then you’re going to need a few of these killer articles to catch some eyes.

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You’ve probably heard from the legions of people out there telling you how to write blogs that subheadings are a great way to improve readability and make your blog better.

This is a gigantic steaming pantload.  Here are three reasons why.

1. Subheadings add unnecessary words to a blog count. Look, I can see it if you’re regularly posting in the upper hundred / thousands of words count, but for your basic hundred-plus word count blog, adding subheadings is like adding a spoiler on the trunk of your Ford Focus.  It’s not going to do a whole lot of good and it’ll just look dumb.

2. Subheadings can easily be seen as patronizing and insulting to the reader. Again, in very certain circumstances this isn’t true, but if you’re going for any blog tier much higher than basic education (this can also work well in entertainment if all your subheadings feature jokes), you’re going to be preaching to a crowd of experts.  They don’t need your subheadings to tell them what they’re about to read.  They’ll either grok your point within a few words and go on from there or they’ll read the whole thing to see what they can glean from it.

The Continuation of  The Reason List, Or, See What a Bad Idea This Is?

3. Subheadings break up the flow of a blog.  When you break up a post to announce stuff like I just did above, you’ve just done something horrendous to the way the entire post was moving.  I know phrases like “organic flow” make me seem less like a writing guru and more like a crunchy-granola eco-trippy type, but let’s face it.  Every blog moves along at a certain pace. Now, obviously, you would never put a subheading in the middle of a paragraph, and with careful placing, it can help.  But in many cases, all it serves to do is shatter flow.

Subheadings may have a place, in a certain limited fashion, but chances are, unless you’re in a very specific set of circumstances, the best thing you can do is just blog.

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