Once again my internet browsing is wallowing in the gutter. Perhaps it would be better to say that I am bored to death. Blame laziness.
It seems like most blogs write about the same thing every day. Political blogs and travel blogs are the worst of the worst. Travel blogs could be replaced by a computer program. Indeed, maybe somebody should sell an "app" that automatically puts travel posts on "your" blog. How would anybody know? The result might be a blog with friends and followers in the thousands.
Let's have some fun: what would today's blog title be if an app was writing it. "An Exclusive Paradise Adventure in the Grand Canyon, for Free, Topped Off with a Beautiful Sunset!" Nah, too long.
Perhaps we are so trained as mass consumers that our information-grazing habits imitate our consumption. Thus we fall into blogs that offer tired formulas and repetition.
My excuse for being so lazy is that one only has so much time, there are too many haystacks to look through, and blogs make it difficult to size them up quickly. Imagine you have just run into a new list of blogs and the title of the post is "Another Tuesday." How does that help you decide if it is even worth five more seconds of your time? Why is it so difficult for the blockhead (bloghead?) to choose a title that accurately and truthfully describes the theme of the post?
I prefer blogs that start off with first hand experiences that are odd, or at least non-routine, because these tend to raise interesting questions. Trying to answer the questions causes the blogger to graze in a wider pasture. The blogger might have to borrow an idea from here or there, and borrow an experience from one part of their life or from somebody else's book.
If it didn't progress beyond the level of the concrete and immediate, it would probably degenerate into one of those dreadful "here's what I did today" blogs. At the other extreme, if the blog started with abstractions and platitudes it would freeze into dogma, bumper sticker slogans, or aphorisms meant for pretty calendars or Hallmark cards.
I guess the right word is "eclectic." But that word gets abused, so I'm not sure that doing a search with that term will do me any good. Dare I hope?
Until then, here are some words of wisdom from a successful, early "blogger", Michel de Montaigne. (Complete Essays):
It seems like most blogs write about the same thing every day. Political blogs and travel blogs are the worst of the worst. Travel blogs could be replaced by a computer program. Indeed, maybe somebody should sell an "app" that automatically puts travel posts on "your" blog. How would anybody know? The result might be a blog with friends and followers in the thousands.
Let's have some fun: what would today's blog title be if an app was writing it. "An Exclusive Paradise Adventure in the Grand Canyon, for Free, Topped Off with a Beautiful Sunset!" Nah, too long.
Perhaps we are so trained as mass consumers that our information-grazing habits imitate our consumption. Thus we fall into blogs that offer tired formulas and repetition.
My excuse for being so lazy is that one only has so much time, there are too many haystacks to look through, and blogs make it difficult to size them up quickly. Imagine you have just run into a new list of blogs and the title of the post is "Another Tuesday." How does that help you decide if it is even worth five more seconds of your time? Why is it so difficult for the blockhead (bloghead?) to choose a title that accurately and truthfully describes the theme of the post?
I prefer blogs that start off with first hand experiences that are odd, or at least non-routine, because these tend to raise interesting questions. Trying to answer the questions causes the blogger to graze in a wider pasture. The blogger might have to borrow an idea from here or there, and borrow an experience from one part of their life or from somebody else's book.
If it didn't progress beyond the level of the concrete and immediate, it would probably degenerate into one of those dreadful "here's what I did today" blogs. At the other extreme, if the blog started with abstractions and platitudes it would freeze into dogma, bumper sticker slogans, or aphorisms meant for pretty calendars or Hallmark cards.
I guess the right word is "eclectic." But that word gets abused, so I'm not sure that doing a search with that term will do me any good. Dare I hope?
Until then, here are some words of wisdom from a successful, early "blogger", Michel de Montaigne. (Complete Essays):
...and no matter if he forget where he had his learning, provided he know how to apply it to his own use.
Bees cull their several sweets from this flower and that blossom, here and there where they find them, but themselves afterwards make the honey, which is all and purely their own, and no more thyme and marjoram: so the several fragments he borrows from others, he will transform and shuffle together to compile a work that shall be absolutely his own; that is to say, his judgment: his instruction, labour and study, tend to nothing else but to form that.That is my project: looking for blogs who know how to 'make the honey.'
Comments
http://sofarfromheaven.com/2011/06/
Not exactly a travel or RV blog, though he does both. Mostly he travels in his head. He's had an interesting life.
You complain about travel blogs and you do that a lot. I think its safe to say that anyone who has read your blog knows your position on that and repeating it over and over doesn't exactly make for stimulating or interesting reading.
For the life of me I can't understand why you continue to read them. It seems to fall into the same category as those folks who are offended by a book, movie or TV program. Clearly, I will never figure out why they don't simply avoid them. One can only assume that the enjoyment they get from complaining outweighs their dislike for that which they complain about.
Moreover, not everyone who reads a "travel blog" can be so neatly pigeonholed. Reasons vary and you appear not to be open to recognizing that.
Or maybe all your complaining is just for appearance sake to fit in with your persona?
Anyway, keep in mind that over the long term your own blog has its own repeating aspect as far as topics go. It would seem to be unavoidable.
By the way, to be clear it is Jim here. I wouldn't wan't Gayle to be blamed for my comments.
But the theme of the post was constructive: I was looking for suggestions at finding blogs that interest me. I am a terrible searcher on the internet.
I wish that you would respond to the challenge that I stole from recent Mish Shedlock articles on "robotic journalists are coming": is there a market for an app that writes travel blogs, is it cheating, and why? If I was a software guy, I think I would write such an app. Imagine the advertisement for this app in Trailer Life or FMCA.
http://acornabbey.com/blog/
I don't write about individuals. I write about categories. In fact if an individual is permitted as an exception to a general opinion, I have paid them a high compliment.
Don't you remember my post about the pit bull who welcomed himself into camp in Colorado, and how my first reaction was to grab a rock and bash his brains in. But then at the end of the weekend I had learned to love him, and hated taking him to the animal shelter?
But you are right: treating writing like it is an extension of thinking and living will never make a blogger into a popular, bar-coded, brand name with broad appeal to the consuming masses. (But it worked for Montaigne.)
I was hoping for some sympathy from readers. It has been a frustrating experience to break out of the travel blogosphere, the ghetto of the internet, as a reader and a blogger. I wish people would see it as a positive thing to aspire to do so. Maybe they will be going through the same struggle as me, a couple years from now. You'd think they would at least be curious how one can crawl out of travel blog kindergarten.
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
Another original character, who finally turned the blog into a book, sold a pile of them, and has not been seen since. It was a damn good 4 years though. I suggest starting at the beginning of this one, too, although you can drop in anywhere and get a lot of what you came for.
You do have a demonstrated prediliction for snap judgments, and on a hair trigger at that. It would be a shame if you took one look at this, thought "cartoon", and passed it by. Allie rewards a bit of patience.
O, and this: http://up-ship.com/blog/
Nerd City. Obsession Central. His original scifi stories are not bad.