New Blog; and "What is Blogging?"

Friends Sam and Rebecca have a new blog, which will soon be added to the blogroll (update: done). But I wanted to point to this post, on
""What is blogging?"

See, Sam is one of my political theorist friends, but unlike many of us, who have somewhat lost the faith, Sam is hardcore. I really respect that, and look forward to more posts on heteronormativity. But I also like the posts on art (Rebecca) and washclothes (same).

But I wanted to also post on the question, "What is blogging?," which Sam asks. My blogging philosophy, or blogophy, is that blogging should be (1) informal; (2) lightly edited, at most; and (3) reactive.

(1) A good blog is informal. A blog post is not an article, an essay, or even a column. It's like a sentence. When I was taught to write, I was taught that a sentence is "a single thought." I think a blog post is the same--one thought, idea, point. It should take more than one sentence, usually, to convey, but it should be simple. If you want to do more, write a series of simple posts.

(2) A good blog post is lightly edited. Don't sweat the post. Write it, read it over, make some changes, and post. You can edit it later (update: like I'm doing now). If you break rules (1) and (2), you won't post enough and you'll stop doing it. The key is to post, regularly. Don't let the great (post) be the enemy of the good (post).

I got a million cliches, kids.

(3) A good post is reactive. By this I mean post on something that just happened, that you just read, or saw. Don't try to have deep thoughts. Stay in the moment, in the fray. React, but use the post to think about your reaction and go all second-order on the shit. Try it. You might have a deep thought, in the process.

Some of you have received parts of this advice before. Remember the first rule of blogging: If you don't post, you aren't doing it. So post, even if your posts suck. That sounds like the rule to me; at least, I post enough posts that suck for this to be my rule.

That is all.