Cogito ergo scribo

Alert: Long-winded rambling ahead... (hmmm, aren't all my posts just that?)

贝 asked me jokingly when will i become a famous blogger after reading a link i sent to him -- Darren Rowse's I'm a Six Figure Blogger . With my kind of blogging techniques, "NEVER" is probably the right answer. And by techniques, i don't only mean writing and language skills. It's more than that.

While i envy the people who can make writing/blogging their career (the so-called "ProBlogger"), i know darn well that i'm not cut out to be one myself. My intention to blog was not that in the first place anyway.

Now i come to think about it, perhaps there was another reason why i started a blog of my own -- i was just so darn free at work. The workload had been decreasing since the corruption investigation started, and so was my motivation to work. Imagine that the colleagues who were close to you had all left the company, your boss had also left, there was a retrenchment and you were one of the persons who participated in the axing, knowing full well that there would be no AWS or bonus at year end but you couldn't do anything except to wait and wait and wait until you rot and die with the company... tell me if you are still motivated under such circumstances.

I needed something to help me to pass time. I needed an avenue to express my frustration and worries. I needed to keep reminding myself to be positive in the face of adversity. I needed a way to divert my attention from this shit. And more importantly, i needed something to help me to keep my sanity.

Since young, i've always resorted to writing to vent my feelings, as shown in the old screeds that i've written years ago. It's no surprise that i'm doing the same again this time. The only difference is that i don't write them out with a pen anymore.

Then why not just type out the rants and keep them in the hard disk instead of putting them onto a blog where anyone can read it? I don't know the answer for sure, but maybe, just maybe, i've come to realize that any form of sharing is good in comforting one's soul. I know that 贝 and several of my best friends read my blog everyday. Perhaps this is my way of sharing my woes with them, not through utterances but the bits and bytes jumping off the computer screen.

So back to 贝's question about becoming a popular blogger. Nay, that wasn't my aim. If it was, i would have done all the things necessary to increase the traffic and readership, and subsequently to earn money from it, such as:

1. Use eye-catching titles that contain provocative words or phrases such as "sex", "porn", "Malaysia vs. Singapore", or "Xia Xue".
   


2. Write something that generates controversies such as "sex on the beach", "Malaysia vs. Singapore", "Singapore sucks", or "Xia Xue". Or talk about my sex life, in details.
   


3. Post a lot of my pretty pictures. Or even better, nude pictures. Of course, preferably the pictures have all been photoshoped, although i know i'll do just fine without any extra touch.  
   


4. Use lots of vulgar words in my writing, such as adorning the verbs and adjectives with the word f*ck (and spell it out in full). For instance, "i f*cking hate those mother f*ckers in this f*cked-up place". Oh, and of course, to add a Malaysian touch, i would have to curse KNNCCB and the like every now and then, preferably as a paragraph on its own, or with bold or italic font.
   
   (I'm not a person who likes to use foul language, not in real life nor in writing, of course unless i'm really pissed. I have no problem with people who curse and swear all the time. Just that i ain't one of them, that's all.)
   


5. Litter other blogs with comments even when i have nothing much to say. Of course the other blogs must be those famous ones with thousands of visitors per day. To generate more attention, post negative comments.
   


6. Always reply those who commented on my blog.
   
   (I do read and appreciate the comments on my blog, but i seldom reply because i think most are just passersby who probably wouldn't come back. And sometimes, i simply didn't know what to reply so i would just leave it as that.)
   


7. Ping PPS more than once for every post i have.
   
   (A lot of times i wouldn't even ping PPS at all for some posts that i don't think would be of interest to anyone. For instance, THIS post will not be pinged.)
   


8. Join a lot of online communities (such as Friendster) or get my blog listed in many blog portals/directories (such as PPS / RBJ). Befriend other bloggers, preferably famous ones. Even better, meet up with other bloggers to become part of a close-knit group.
   
   (I'm too lazy to play the online communities game and my blog was only registered with PPS. I also doubt i would attend any bloggers meet-up even if one is held in JB or Singapore. I'm a lazy ass when it comes to socializing and am extremely inept in small talk -- that explains why my posts are normally long and draggy.)
   


9. Find a niche for my blog that would distinguish it from others; concentrate on one kind of topics instead of pointless rambling; For instance, only write about politics, tech gadgets, fashion, music, books, cooking, or whatever.
   
   (That would kinda defy my purpose of having a blog in the first place; where else then should my senseless rants go?)
   


10. Add Google AdSense to my blog and explore all the strategic locations to place the ad so as to solicit the most clicks and thus revenues.
    
    (I know it's kinda silly to not take the chance to generate some income from this source but i just couldn't be bothered. Plain lazy i guess).
    

Anyway, in the end, i guess what really counts is still the writing and the personality of the blogger that is reflected through the blog. And i bet my blog does just that: reflecting what a nagging, whinny, self-pitying lazybones i am.  

Labels: blogging