Yet Another List Of 10 About Blogging and Social Media and Shit Like That By Someone Who’s Been Doing It For Years

1. Keeping a blog is, and should be, hard work.
Look down the page. See that big break between February and now? That’s when I had a long hours job. All my smart and funnies were put into that job. The last thing I wanted to do after writing an ad that 'must have a dog in it' was to come home and write something witty about kittens falling off couches.

2. Nobody completely ‘understands’ ‘social media’. It’s magical.
That’s right. It’s magical. Now pay me shitloads as a social media consultant and then I’ll tell you again. It’s magical.

3. Comments are fine. But who reads the long ones?
Really, if you can’t say tell us you don’t like the new Vegemite name in less than three lines, you’re only really telling us you’re probably a tedious person to live with.

4. Talk about the supposed death of the newspaper all you like but please don’t diss the journalist.
I was one all through my 20s. It was hard work, and because I wasn’t good enough at it to be on staff in big media, it was especially hard to make a living out of it. Chasing 120 day old invoices from owner-operator shit rags isn’t my bag.

My lovely girlyfriend is good enough at it to be a reporter at a big newspaper. She works really hard. Her hours are consistently longer than mine were while I was a copywriter a big advertising agency. And every day she writes at least one story of 600ish words, citing quotes from real sources. Real people. Not quotes lifted from other websites. To get those quotes, she uses the phone, visits people at their workplace or meets them for coffee. That time doesn’t even come close to the time she needs to research the story enough to understand what the hell the sources talking about.

Also she refuses to be inspired to start chasing a story from reading a press release.

Now a challenge. You find me a good 20 or so blogs you read everyday where the writer a) actually uses the phone to quote their sources in all their articles b) only uses the contacts in their address book to break their own stories c) NEVER republishes press releases.
They don’t exist. And they don’t exist because writing and reporting is hard work.

While you ponder that, read this.

5. Should everyone have a blog?
Only if you think it’s interesting enough for me to read it.

6. Keep it simple (and) stupid.
Cats are funny. If that’s not your bag, read some David Sedaris to learn how to be funny while poignant.

7. Everyone can be famous (and annoying as fuck), on Facebook and Twitter.
I think Simon Townsend got it right when he once accidentally told viewers 'It’s nice to be important but it’s important to be famous.' Stay tuned to my Twitter and Facebook feeds for the announcement of when I decide to elaborate on this tedious point.

8. Newspapers dying? Yeah, but nothing beats reading a newspaper or magazine.
And while you're at it, I bet you're about to tell me you get all you want from visiting The Age or if you wanna be hoighty toighty, The Guardian, online. But really, do you get everything you need?

9. Why do I do this?
To show off my mad writing skills to my friends and future employers. Hint hint.

10. There’s no money in blogging.
Over all these years I’ve earned a little over $100 from advertising on my blogs.