You probably won’t, but that’s what I think every time I write out a blog title.
I schedule my blog out a month in advance. Which means, if I died things like “creative,” “the thing that happened the other day,” and more would post with no actual content. This way I know what to write about on those days, but I don’t actually write them until the day before…or the day of.
It’s supposed to make my blogging life easier, but I don’t always use it to my advantage.
Keeps my life exciting.
I also schedule the quotes of the day a month in advance, which is the worst day of my life. It takes forever. (April is looming and I’m already thinking ‘does anyone actually like those?’)
Sometimes it forces me to stop being lazy, while other times I succumb to it or I really don’t have the time to so I move the date up and boom–two QOTD in a row. The past few days I’ve been in the dragging-my-feet-to-post mind frame.
When I first started blogging I tried to blog like a blogger. Like someone who knew what they were doing. It’s the wrong way to approach blogging.
Just like every-freaking-thing else in the world, you’ve got to find what works for you.
For me that’s scheduling my blogs and when I post, I’m here for a conversation not to write elaborate essays.
Clichés are clichés for a reason–just be yourself, do what you want with your blog because if you try to do what everyone else is doing you’re going to be in the same boat anyway…a small unnoticeable blog. At least this way you can actually have fun with it.
I’d like to note that what I mean by do what you want is if you want to be funny be funny–I’m not talking about doing 10 different genres. Stick to things that make sense together.
I cheated. My blog is the memoir of a writer…therefore I can totally talk about my life and writing, plus books and creative things I put in the same category.
I’ve done a lot of research for my job about blogging / instagram / and facebook. And holy crap to “make it” quickly I feel like you have to be fake. You have to blog about the “5 greatest things about summer” because lists are cool.
They’re cool for established websites. (Unless your blog is formatted that way already–in that case go for it.)
I have what I like to call a baby blog. It hasn’t been a year since I decided to–actually, seriously, no really–blog. But I enjoy it more each day.
Memoir of a Writer 
I use the scheduling for drafts at just about any stage of development. But then I ignore the schedule and publish them whenever I fill like it. When I lost power for 3 days and loss access to WP, I was afraid something would publish on the schedule without any doing on my part, and it would be some half-written piece of garbage.
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Lol once I had scheduled something, and when I wrote it I accidently did it on a new draft so when I published it they both did. One with actual content and one with just a title!
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Yes. I like your quotes. They’re inpiring
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Thanks, I appreciate that!
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I had a blog previous to my current one for about 5 years of dedicated writing. I rarely scheduled posts (real life took priority most of the time), but I did write frequently for those five years. I ran into the same problem as you: I was writing for my audience. I was a communications major so it is ingrained in my head that I need to present a brand and write for an audience. While it’s not bad to write for your audience, I think as bloggers it’s hard to not get caught up in the trendiness/the “right” way to blog. We bloggers are our own brands, so we have to present ourselves to the audience and not come up with something inauthentic to present to them. They can see right through it, and it leads to quick burn out. With the last blog, I was scraping the barrel trying to find topics that my audience would like, that I forgot to write what I liked – if that makes any sense!
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I love when you say “we bloggers are our own brands.” It’s so true and really it’s a relief. I’ve had to play the marketing person (because my bosses tend to throw things at me) and so I had a hard time getting over needing to brand everything I did as one cohesive unit. But blogging isn’t the same as running a business, it’s more of sharing a part of who you are.
Thanks for sharing that😊
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Blog titles are hard, but you do a great job with them! Blogging is one of those things where you’ve got great days/posts and people from all over the world read it, and others where one person sees it and they probably clicked on it accidentally. You’ve just got to learn to ride the ups and downs, but I totally agree that you’ve got to do your own thing! It’s your blog, not anyone else’s. Write what you want, and if someone doesn’t like it, they can click off elsewhere. I can’t help but admire your committment – I try to upload a post once a week and even I can’t always manage that! You do a wonderful job and we all enjoy what you do!
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I love the idea that everyone should just let their blogs reflect who they are and what they want to share with the world. ❤ What you said about finding what works for you made me think of one of my favorite song lyrics, "Honey, there is no right way." 🙂
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Thanks! There’s always this weird pressure when you tell people you’ve started blogging. I had family tell me that I needed to do certain things to have any kind of following, and finally I just said, I’d rather have a following that likes what I write then have to change everything I do to gain more and more followers.
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That’s an excellent philosophy! I really agree with that approach of sticking with your true style and building genuine connections. ❤
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Web Logs are so, 1990’s. I look at this process as more a chronicle of my current mental state. How could one schedule that?
So, did you schedule this little missive about missives?
I get the “I’m gonna make social media work for me.” idea. And, maybe that’ll work. The world seems utterly fickle though. In a year? Three? Who knows what any feature/factor/freakish work of the digital-illuminati will be popular.
If I had to schedule my “hey — look at me” activities, I’d, well hell, I’d be dead.
If your main thought when writing a post is “how can I make you read this” then you’ve already lost the game. For the long game, write for yourself. Your public will find you — if you’re good enough.
In five years when you’ve abandoned this whole thing, remember these thoughts and come back to them. Play the long game. Play to win for yourself — not the others you want to try and hoodwink.
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I don’t force topics. When I say I schedule what I want to write about it’s simply that throughout the week random ideas will pop into my head and I’ll write them down. When I schedule I take that list of ideas and place them on days – this simply keeps me blogging regularly, which is a goal I want.
The “how can I make you read this” doesn’t define the content, it defines the pressure any writer feels when titling anything. A book, a poem, etc.
Saying that if you’re “good enough” that your audience will find you is like hitting a home run in a game that no one knew was happening. Sure people stumble upon great work all the time, but the majority find it by noticing the title.
“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” or title. It’s because we do even when we think we don’t.
I like things to have clean titles. so if they’re messy or use “!!!!!!!!” I probably wont click on it. That post could have been really great, but I wouldn’t know. This is my own preference but humans aren’t much different from one another no matter how much we try to claim to be.
For the “write for yourself” I’d say yes– to certain point. Writing for a hobby is for yourself, but I’d say classics were never written only for the author. Art is in three parts- the art / the artist / the audience.
But blogging is different. Blogging is more personality driven, therefore I do write “for myself” but I do have in mind an audience because I do want people to read it. If I wrote just for myself I might as well go buy a journal and not waste my time here.
Obviously tricking your audience isn’t going to be great in the long-run. I’m not trying to click-bait… It’s about thinking through a title the way you think about a title on anything else.
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(Grin), I just like pulling your chain. You have substantially strong opinions, which I value and applaud. Got to have yang where everyone is sipping at the yin.
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Isn’t yang chaos? Are you saying my ideals disrupt order? lol
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Yin is the weaker, passive negative force. Yang is the stronger, active, positive force.
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Please keep the QOTDs coming. I thoroughly enjoy them 🙂
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Thanks! It’s good to know! 🙂
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Great title for the post! I have the same problem. I type titles and just stare at them like ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’…
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Yes! lol but we do anyway. Titles are important and often the thing I’m worst at!
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I’ve been wondering the same thing lately. If your blog’s a baby blog, mine’s an embryo at about a month and a half. Sometimes I’ll get a handful or two of likes and a new follower or two and sometimes I don’t even get any views. I’ve tried scheduling just to see if posting at different times will get different results. It hasn’t seemed to change anything.
Of course, I’ve been inconsistent. I get caught up in actual writing and forget all about my blog. Then I get emails from blogs I follow, like yours, and think, ” Oh yeah, I should post a blog.” Then I start working on a blog draft and think, “I should be working on my book.”
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lol I schedule because blogging regularly is a goal of mine.
I post something with a lot of content only about once a week. QOTD every other and creative work / easy content the rest of the time. it keeps me active, but not overwhelmed.
If you want to be consistent, think of different types of things you’d like to post, then spread them out and plan. Like Fridays will be your big blog day, etc. You can start off small, like three days a week, That’s what I did, but then just added more things to what I wanted to post. 🙂 Hope that helps.
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Thanks. I’ll try to be more consistent.
You do an excellent job. I enjoy your blog.
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Thanks! I appreciate it 🙂
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Baby blogs unite! Or maybe we’ll just keep having fun with it. One of my favorite expressions is: “That’s too much like work.” I want my blog to be fun, not work.
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Haha! Yes! & same I’m not blogging for a job, but an outlet for thought.
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That’s one way to make someone read the post. I was going to scroll down, sorry, but the title didn’t let me. It just challenged me to read it. And you know what I ain’t disappointed 😀 This was a wonderful post. And I agree – Do whatever you want and Have Fun. The two important points. 🙂 ❤
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lol I don’t know whether I should take that as a compliment or not. But I will since you weren’t disappointed. 🙂
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Yessss… 🙂 I mean, after all, it was a smart move… #creativityunmatched lol 😀
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ONE – the title of the post made me read it! So that was a catchy thing to do!
TWO – Until now I didn’t know anyone else who has read the book about the making of the dictionary – except me!
Smiles!
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