Choose Your Own Adventure

When Janssen and I first discussed creating our own blogs, we talked about the pros and cons of having a clearly themed blog verses just blogging about whatever topic happened to strike our interest. Janssen decided to go the themed route with a book blog - one in which she reviews many of the books she has read. That said, she does not hesitate to write about all kinds of other things such as narrowly escaping a $79 Amazon charge, her preference for humidity, our successful dessert limitation goal, shoes, her husband's birthday, talent show performances, movie reactions and quotes, and even times when she has found it difficult to find motivation to read.

Janssen's blog is an impressive mix of book reviews and other book/reading/library-related posts and fun, sometimes snarky, sometimes sweet, sometimes ranting, often enthusiastic, and always interesting posts about all sorts of things.

I, however, chose not to follow a specific theme with my blog. And I think that's what has made it so difficult for me to write consistently. I've also questioned the worth of writing a blog. It takes time and thought to write things of worth (a relative and elusive concept itself). It can be a big investment, and I've been questioning what the return is, and whether the return is worth the investment.

One of the most important things a blogger can do to make his blog more credible, in my opinion, is to write consistently. It adds a sense of priority and importance. It makes it clear that the blog will live on regardless of the number of comments - that there are things to be said that stand on their own. Consistent posts add up over time. Ten posts hardly comprise a blog, no matter their quality.

The other element of blogging I've struggled with is topic choice. I admittedly enjoy getting comments. So I've sometimes catered my posts to what I think readers will like rather than just writing what I feel like writing. And I think that's fine, to an extent, as long as I can strike a nice balance of being true to my own interests while catering to what I think readers will find interesting. Like most things in life, the balanced approach is probably the best approach as long as I can stay authentic.

For now, I'm going to stick with my unthemed blog, but I'm going to post more consistently, and I'd like to know what topics you all think are interesting - especially those that overlap with my interests.

So let me know your preferences, if you would. I like all of the following broad topics (this is a quick list), and I'd also be grateful for any suggestions you may have that seem like things I might want to blog about.

• Personal Finances
• Health and Fitness
  
• Accounting and Finance
• Business and Careers
• Home and Family Life
• Education, Reading, and Learning
• Music