Thoughts on Blogging

It being the first blog of the year, I thought of reading up a bit on travel blogging. The aim was self-evaluation - to see how I would rate myself on what I had written last year on few of the many adventures trips that I and my friends had ventured into. Bloggers could be of two types: those who blog for fun and those who pursue blogging as a profession. There was no doubt; I belonged to the first kind. But rating myself on a scale of 10 would have merely discouraged me from pursuing this further. Hence, I dropped the idea of rating myself soon after I read this other blog on tips to newbie travel bloggers.  The most basic elements of blogging seemed off-track. As I read further, professional blogging seemed far-to-reach for now. It not just required more finesse and dedication, I think one gets to that level through practice and it is important to take the right baby-steps in that direction. I asked myself as to what is the purpose of blogging. The answer to that would define how I should proceed further.

Why do I wish to blog?

Definitely, to…

-          Record my travel journey across the globe.

-          Share my experiences with near-and-dear ones.

-          Reflect on every trip and see what I learned from people, culture, nature, traditions, etc.

and NOT…

-          To make money.

-          To attract viewers.

-          To publicize on social media.

Of course, it would be good if the blog benefits people beyond my friend-circle. But that would require me to be unique in my approach as there are thousands of travel blogs online, some very good ones too. So, for now, I will park that thought. God willing, if this initiative flies, some day, I might get interesting ideas to give professional look to my blog. I would definitely want to use this blogging experience to write a book in future that covers the travel destination that mesmerizes me the most.

Here are the key lessons that I should follow for my blog to be interesting.

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   Be informative: While the travelogues written in 2015 have been a mix of the factual details of the place and a personal account of the group’s experiences, the writing style needs to change a bit to lay greater emphasis on providing information about what-to-do, how-to-travel, where-to-stay/eat, and other such essential details. Of course, our personal experiences and fun moments can be woven as a story alongside. I should also write about the common mistakes that one should avoid, both based on my own experiences and from what I read on other blogs.

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   Collaborate with friends:  A lot of times, different people bring in different skills. Given my technology handicap, it always helps to have friends who can put stuff on the web and integrate the flow of the write-up with images. The blog that I started working on last year, was one such collaborated effort, which is yet to take the final shape before we make it live.

-  Photography is an important skill: While it is definitely boring to read plain text and photos are mandatory for any blog to be interesting, one should also click pictures specifically for the blog during the trip. A lot of times, a photo can be an effective medium in narrating the story and can give ideas of what to write about, in the respective blog.

-  Get your English right:  Basis my recent international interactions at work, I realized that the English that we write in India, is far from perfect. To add to the misery, English not being our mother tongue, it becomes hard to get the flow right when we translate our thoughts to words. While something might seem correct when you write it for the first time, a round of proofreading is must to ensure proper grammar and appropriate use of words. Creative flair is the second step; let us focus on the basics first. Let me now, proofread this article.

-  Let’s just start blogging: While I would never want to copy the content of my blogs from other sources, let me take the liberty of reproducing this part of the article from the blog that I mentioned above because of the impact of the message cannot be replicated in other words.

“And finally, my bonus tip is to just start blogging. Stop worrying about design and what other people think and what other people are doing, just get started. It doesn’t matter if your blog isn’t perfect because the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll begin learning how to make it perfect."

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”  - Mark Twain