What should I write about? This question has troubled me for quite some time now. Now you'd think, why is that such a big problem for me! Is blogging such a big deal?! People keep on rambling on about their lives, inventions, discoveries, joys, sorrows and - this one seems to be the most favourite - technology. Can I also not do the same and tell you something about the new features of C# 5 or, for that matter, how cool jQuery is at making your life simpler in the web world? Or maybe I could tell you how wonderful I felt on my first production release when a colleague gave me a congratulatory card. I think no one would be interested in reading about the latter topic.
Well, to help you better understand my situation, let me tell you a story. It's an interesting little story about this blog itself and how it has evolved over time.
About a month ago, I started learning HTML and CSS. This made me want to experiment with the web again. Beautifully designed web pages had always enchanted me. I felt that I had learnt enough to be able to do some design of my own. Altering the CSS of my own blog was the best I could do to design a real world web page and get useful feedback. I did so to the new blog that I had created (again "Random Thoughts") and was as happy with my work as any programmer would be. So much so that I wrote the first blog post on how I customised the look and feel of my blog using only CSS. Having done it, I decided to showcase my blog's design to my colleagues. I did not get the wow's and ooh's that I had expected. And then I was shown a couple of other blogs whose designs were so pleasing to the eye that I scrapped my own blog. Thus ended my third attempt to start blogging.
Now that you have heard the story and, hopefully, want to read on, you must have understood why it is such a big question for me. Why want to write, then, you'd ask. You are right! I too do not want to. But +Akshay Kulkarni, a friend of mine urged that I should write something. And that I should not be content only with changing the CSS (i.e. theme and design) of my blog, but add some content to it.
Well, I cannot just write anything that comes to my mind. I feel personally responsible for the fact that I should not waste my readers' time. They should enjoy reading my blog, at least, and learn something, at best. I cannot write about some technology just because I feel that I know about it. I should be convinced myself that I'm doing a better job at explaining it to my readers than anyone else out there. I can't use this blog as my personal diary either as I do not want to waste my readers' time sharing my thoughts when there are other authors who have more engrossing stories to tell.
If you have read this far, please help me decide what should I write about. It has to be something that you, the reader, wants to read. Till then, I'm also pondering over this vital question of the blogging world with the hope that this blog has a long life and does not end up in trash. Fingers crossed!
Well, to help you better understand my situation, let me tell you a story. It's an interesting little story about this blog itself and how it has evolved over time.
I created this blog about a few years ago with the sole purpose of writing some good articles explaining the intricacies of programming to my friends at college. It was called "Technophiles" (and, believe me, I thought the name was unique at that time). I wrote the first blog post explaining the intent clearly. There was no other content. Just the prelude, that's it! Then I was away from the web world for some months (I had to focus on my studies, you see!). One fine day, when I was browsing Orkut (yes, Orkut was still widely used back then) I found that one Mr. X (no names here), who was my classmate, had a link to his own blog on his profile. Now this Mr. X was supposed to be a studious fellow and all, so I decided to take a look at what he had written. When the page finally loaded, I was shocked to find my own blog post staring back at me. It seems this Mr. X had been quite inspired by my initiative and wanted to do something similar. Apparently, he also decided to make his first blog post an introduction to his intent and not having any better words than mine (exactly mine) to do so, he found it prudent enough to blatantly copy my first blog post as his own very first one (copyright notwithstanding). I was put off of blogging by this. I deleted the blog and stayed away from the blogging world for the next few years.
About a month ago, I started learning HTML and CSS. This made me want to experiment with the web again. Beautifully designed web pages had always enchanted me. I felt that I had learnt enough to be able to do some design of my own. Altering the CSS of my own blog was the best I could do to design a real world web page and get useful feedback. I did so to the new blog that I had created (again "Random Thoughts") and was as happy with my work as any programmer would be. So much so that I wrote the first blog post on how I customised the look and feel of my blog using only CSS. Having done it, I decided to showcase my blog's design to my colleagues. I did not get the wow's and ooh's that I had expected. And then I was shown a couple of other blogs whose designs were so pleasing to the eye that I scrapped my own blog. Thus ended my third attempt to start blogging.
Now that you have heard the story and, hopefully, want to read on, you must have understood why it is such a big question for me. Why want to write, then, you'd ask. You are right! I too do not want to. But +Akshay Kulkarni, a friend of mine urged that I should write something. And that I should not be content only with changing the CSS (i.e. theme and design) of my blog, but add some content to it.
Well, I cannot just write anything that comes to my mind. I feel personally responsible for the fact that I should not waste my readers' time. They should enjoy reading my blog, at least, and learn something, at best. I cannot write about some technology just because I feel that I know about it. I should be convinced myself that I'm doing a better job at explaining it to my readers than anyone else out there. I can't use this blog as my personal diary either as I do not want to waste my readers' time sharing my thoughts when there are other authors who have more engrossing stories to tell.
If you have read this far, please help me decide what should I write about. It has to be something that you, the reader, wants to read. Till then, I'm also pondering over this vital question of the blogging world with the hope that this blog has a long life and does not end up in trash. Fingers crossed!
1 comment:
I agree with Akshay,the second last line, even if u get a low reader count, they wont leave u easily and u would enjoy re-reading ur own blog later !
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