Since
I began writing this travel blog, my inner Google has been working its
way through the gazillions of blogs
on the Internet devoted to this subject. Initially I was looking for
inspiration but ended up drowning in choices. (There is a
reason I have never stepped foot in a Costco store. Heavy volume of anything—tinned goods, cars or words—overwhelms me.)
The
search engine spits out blogs written by young travelers, old ones, the
aging and the coming-of-age. There are traveling couples, lots of singles, the
newly singles, and those who-don’t-want-to-be-single anymore. Sick bloggers,
healthy or recovering ones and those who-are-worried-about-being-too-sick-to
climb say, Mount Kilimanjaro, are also well represented. Conveyances are another
organizing theme, so there are bloggers on bikes, on boats, or just in hiking
boots. Finally but certainly not exhaustively, there are destination listers, bucket and otherwise, as well
as the niche travel bloggers advising readers on every conceivable angle on the subject. Or so it seems.
How
the heck to choose what to read? Worse for a writer, how the heck to choose
what to write in order to offer something different? And worst of all, how to find readers?
In the 25
years I spent being a go-to expert on the subject of expats,
handing out advice like I was Dear Abby or Dr. Phil, I had a significant global audience for my website,
my books and my blog, indeed all of it.
Was I so brilliant on the subject?
Not really. As I used to tell the lovely audiences that invited me to lecture, I wasn’t writing about rocket science. In fact, everything I
wrote and articulated about global living most expats already knew. The words common sense came up a lot.
My success hinged on one major fact:
I was an ‘early adopter’ of the Internet (my website went up 15 years ago) so I
was almost first to market with all of it. There was no need, as there is now,
to be outrageous to cut through the noise and find the story that would go viral. That was a concept years away
from even being invented.
Writers
have always had to be provocative and original to attract readers. So I’m
wondering, is it time for me to do something completely different? Should I ditch
the safe and predictable?
I asked my
son what he thought I should write about on this travel blog.
“Why don’t you just write about all the places
in the world you’ve smoked pot?”
Anyone
interested in hearing those traveler’s tales? I can share them, if I can
remember them.
you're a brave one!
ReplyDeleteBrave or nuts?? :-)
ReplyDeleteLike you've always been, Robin, you are authentic and true. I love this post, it is absolutely, spot-on, about the incredible information overload of mainly self-aggrandizing crap that is out there on the blogosphere. Yes, do write about something real, about something fun, about something relevant -- wait, that's what you've been doing for 30 years.
ReplyDeleteWould that mean writing about my visits to you, Mare, when you still lived in Holland? :-) Thanks for the feedback pal! The thing is, so many of those blogs (and I hope to add them to the links section) are excellent and of very high quality...I was blown away by how good they are....of course there are the ones that are less so....but on the whole, it's a very impressive group of travel blogs out there...just too many of them!!!
ReplyDelete