A Quick Flashback Versus New Material

One of the consistent and ongoing challenges of blogging is being able to continue to post new content. There are some bloggers who refuse to post unless they think that their material is top notch and then there are others who slap any old thing up there.

I fall somewhere in the middle. It is important to me to maintain a standard and level of quality but at the same time I realize that I am not always going to look at my work and consider it be my best.

That doesn't mean that I think that I consistently posting second rate material, it is just that i understand that when you post as frequently as I do you are not going to be presenting Pulitzer prize winning material every time.

That leads in to my next point and that is a response to those bloggers who want to know how to find more material for their blog. In my experience when you are searching for something to write about you have a number of resources.
  1. Stories about your life or people you know.
  2. Searching other blogs and riffing/commenting about something that they have written.
  3. The News- Read a newspaper or website and comment on something interesting there.
Sometimes the hardest part of doing that is being able to present the material in an interesting way. I don't see anything wrong in riffing/commenting off of the work someone else did as long as you give them credit for doing it and you have created something that is unique and have not plagiarized their work.

I should add that from my perspective there is so much material out there it is hard to imagine not being able to find anything new.

I would encourage new bloggers to blog frequently because like anything else this takes practice and the more you do it the easier it becomes.

One more note. I am not adverse to providing links to older material that I think was well done. Sometimes it is worth bringing these treasures out for another glimpse in the daylight as some of them hold up quite nicely.

What do you think?

6 comments:

Ezzie said...

Why not?

PsychoToddler said...

So much of blogging is seasonal--we blog about holidays or school or things that come around cyclically. I'm finding this to be a challenge because I hate to repeat myself. So if I wrote about Christmas last year, I won't write about it this year unless I have something new to say. Because I hate to repeat myself.

Ezzie said...

PT - LOL. :)

Air Time said...

You left taking cheap shots at entire regions of the country off your list

Happy chanuka

stc said...

I don't see anything wrong in riffing/commenting off of the work someone else did as long as you give them credit for doing it and you have created something that is unique and have not plagiarized their work.

I agree. If I have my own slant on the subject, that's enough to warrant a post.

I rarely have a problem coming up with something to write about because everything I read triggers thoughts. Most of the time I don't post them, I just leave a comment on the original post.
Q

Jack Steiner said...

PT,

You got me too. Score two for the price of one.

Air Time,

You are right, ragging on detroit and cleveland is just unfair. Those places start out behind the eight ball. ;)

Q,

One of the things that I appreciate about you blog is that it never feels stale to me.

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