Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Perfect Blog Post



Short, sharp and sexy.

See! I know it. I just don't bother to follow the rules. And I have no idea why I'm writing this particular post at all, unless it has something to do with the many discussions about blogging I've read recently. One was in a magazine which promised to tell me the TEN things that would make a small blog into a big money-maker. Of course I bought the magazine right away. The ten things were a big disappointment, sort of like being told that getting up in the morning is a necessary condition for having a good day at work. I'm going to offer to write the magazine a follow-up article for those bloggers who already know those obvious ten things, and I'm going to tell them the eleventh thing: Get a sugardaddy or sugarmommy or an angel.

Not that I plan to make money out of blogging. All I'm looking for is immortal fame. And neither is this blog exactly small though it isn't big, either. It's just right, like the one bed in the "Goldilocks and Three Bears" story.

A perfect blog post is a team effort, and that is an exciting difference from earlier types of writing. The comments to a post become part of the story, often wandering about, then returning to the point from a different direction, adding examples and counterexamples and placing the whole thing squarely into a wider frame. It can be quite wonderful when it really works, though it's an odd feeling to have only limited control over something that started as my lovechild. Is that sexy enough?