Everyone on da intarwebs is in need of a cookie and a nap.

Dec 20, 2006

Originally, I was going to do a bit on basic accessibility and usability. I changed my mind as I was reading others' tales of overload, stress, burnout, and plain old lethargy — other T13ers, Holidailies participants, even the other sites I read.

While it's easy to put this down to exhaustion following NaNoWriMo, NaBlaBleeBloWhatever (I know it has a name, I just can't remember it), Holidailies, and the holiday-season prep, people can — and do — burn out at any time during the year. They burn out because they just can't think of anything scintillating to write; or because they can't even think of anything new to write; or they're tired of messing with their current blogging software that won't do what they want it to; or they're not getting comments so why continue; or what have you.

Everybody goes through this. This is normal. But there are some ways to avoid this, or put it off, or at least make the doldrums less severe and of shorter duration:

Round 72::8 — Thirteen Tips for Avoiding Burnout

1. Make the site a welcoming place to visit. By that, I don't mean make it look like the idealized grandma's kitchen (unless you truly love that look and want that look, in which case go for it!) I mean, make your site easy to read, easy to navigate, and easy to add comments or share with other people. Whether you want your design theme to be Americana-comfort or art-nouveau, site visitors should know how to find things to read (or download, or purchase) and how to use all the features of your site. When people know how to contribute, they're more likely to do so.
2. Don't overload the plate. Have you ever been to a party, or someone's house, where you're asked if you'd like some coffee? Tea? A biscuit? A sandwich? Lemonade? Milk? Muffins? Some candy? At some point, you cross the line from being able to say “No, thank you, not right now” to thinking “When can I leave...!” If a web page shows dozens of links, moving pictures, videos, music clips, glitteries, *and* text at visitors all at once, the visitors can get overwhelmed. They may miss your content because they only saw all the other stuff. Know when to say “enough is enough”
3. Be polite to your visitors. Make sure that your type is not illegibly tiny, that your pictures won't make a dial-up user's connection hang, that your music has a clearly-marked way to turn it off, that your comments don't absolutely require that people have some type of membership to leave any kind of comment, and that your text is relatively readable.
4. ...and on the flip side, this is your site. You don't want to not speak your mind on your site, or not post something because you think that a few people won't absolutely love whatever-it-is. It's your site, it's your opinion, it's your thing to like or not like. Sure, for everyone out there who loves snowflake graphics (just using my site as a noncontroversial example) there's going to be dozens of people who can take it or leave it and a few who mentally roll their eyes and say, “Oh. Another one.”
5. Write about anything that interests you. It can change from day to day. You can write about privacy legislature one day and post photos of your pets the next. You can tell people about what your kids did in temple last week, segue directly into a mini-rant about the evils of thoughtless consumerism, and finish off with your thoughts on the latest computer game. Just make sure that whatever you write about, do it in such a way that you'd want to read the piece.
6. Don't write about things for which you aren't truly enthusiastic. This, too, will come across in your writing. (This doesn't mean don't accept money to post your opinions on consumer goods. But if you're joining one of the paid-blogging services (aka sponsored blogging) and then posting about a product or service that you would never have a desire to use, then either 1) your post will be lackluster and people will be able to tell; or 2) if you're a writer of any quality, you can probably get a job writing ad copy — and those pay better.)
7. Spend time reading other peoples' sites (or media sites). The best writers read at least as much as they write. When you read something you enjoy, an idea gets started in your own brain: maybe it's a different take on a similar subject. You just never know.
8. Take breaks every now and then. (Remember, the more experiences you have, the more blogfodder you'll have.)
9. If you write factual or informing posts, make sure to state things as clearly as you can. Link back to your source-articles (so that if, later on, one of those source-articles is discredited you can revise what you wrote.) This also has the effect of giving those who disagree with your viewpoint, an alternate target. Perhaps they'll rage about what they consider poor legislation, or a public figure acting without thinking, rather than simply slag on your opinion.
10. Do not post in the heat of anger. Good rarely comes of such things. (For one, I may think faster than I can type...and I'll end up with horrid grammar.) In addition, if you must attack-write, attack ideas rather than people. Why? 1) Ideas can't have their feelings hurt; and 2) ideas don't carry out flame wars.
11. Don't put anything out there that you wouldn't want a potential boss, a potential suitor, or a potential friend to read. If it's published on the Internet, it will still be around ten years from now...and even blogging under a pseudonym won't conceal who you are. People can check the Wayback archives, domain owner records, and comments on other sites. Your chosen topics and syntax can even provide clues to your identity. Know this, and don't post anything thoughtless or mean-spirited that can come back and cause someone pain — because chances are good that it will do just that. (Later edit: here's an interesting article on Yahoo about this very subject.)
12. If you're not having fun, on some level...why are you maintaining a blog?
13. Always keep backups of your site. This can be harder to do, if you're using a free service like Blogspot/Blogger/LiveJournal/GreatestJournal/et al. But then, if that free service fails you don't lose your years of hard work. Sure there may be a lot of digital dandruff in there...but there's probably also a lot of irreplaceable memory-posts, too. (Tip: if this ever happens to you, go through Google IMMEDIATELY and view the cached copies of your old site pages, then save those pages to your hard drive. It takes a lot of time, and you might not be able to get everything back; but it's better than having nothing. Google cache will be easiest to stripmine for two to four months following the “death” of your site. After that, things may get a bit more difficult.)

I'll be posting a list next week; but since some of you may not, happy holidays to all and I'll hope to see you all in 2007!

Links to other T13 posts

• Chez le laquet who is going to be AFK, and spending the weekend in transit to France, to spend Christmas with her family
• Blundering-by-numbers lists thirteen things she likes about working with her sister
• West of Mars
• Writing Aspirations with thirteen birthday memories (go say Happy Birthday!)
• Adventures in Juggling with thirteen utterly random thoughts...most dealing with her family, though

Keywords: | writing | Thursday | site traffic | memes | Holidailies |
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