What do you do when you’ve had an extended break from blogging and find that it’s nearly impossible to write? i found myself asking just this question at the beginning of this month. After almost 45 days of being under intense personal pressure, all I wanted to do was sit in front of my TV watching BBC America and wondering if my house had gotten dirty enough to be featured on one of their programs. It was close, let me tell you.

When I finally did manage to get out of my slump I found that I’d lost the habit of writing. it was nearly impossible for me to post even once a day, let alone the 8 to 12 times a day I had been posting before the world went sideways on me. The stress of the initial problem was gone, but I’d been out of the saddle for so long that I’d forgotten how to ride.

It isn’t easy to get back into the swing of things if you’ve been forced to take a long hiatus. Writing on demand is both a talent and a discipline. It took a long time to get to the point where writing that much in a day was “normal”, it doesn’t take long for your mind to rebel against the intensity of it all. but no writing means no money, so what’s a boy to do?

Simple. Start slowly and build back up. One post every day is a good start. Once that becomes habit again it is far simpler to add another post per day. It isn’t very long before you’ll find that you just keep writing as time is available. Writing = content. Content = Visits. Visits = $$.

If you’re having the same problem, just sit and write something today. Write anything. The subject doesn’t matter, the end result doesn’t matter. What matters is that you get back in and get your mind back in gear. the rest will follow.

The last time you heard something similar to the title of this article may have been in high school, but if you think for a moment that it doesn’t apply to your blog as well, you had better think again. The language you use when publishing blog posts may very well be a factor in readers deciding to add your blog to their feed reader, or just moving on to another blog and leaving yours in the dust for good.

I have written in the past on this very topic on another of my blogs and I have tried to follow my own example.  Unfortunately, it seems that I have fallen into the same sort of writing malaise that plagues a large part of blogs that are “almost good”.

I forget that I must always.  ALWAYS. Proof-read my work before I publish it.

Why am I writing this now?  Because It was very recently brought to my attention that I had been breaking my own rules.  In my rush to get my ideas posted, I had neglected to read over my own work and check for simple errors in both spelling and grammar.  This omission did not go unnoticed nor will it ever, in my opinion.

The person that brought this to my attention may or may not have been aware that I have already stated the very same thing in regards to other people.  She may not have had the slightest idea that her comment would make me feel like a complete hack, unable to practice what I preach but rather adopting a “do as I say and not as I do” attitude, whether intentional or not.  No matter whether she was aware of it or not, I feel that I have let both myself and my readers down and this disturbs me greatly.

Why would I be disturbed by a typo or two?  The answer is simple really.  If I let one or two go through today, the same will happen tomorrow.  Eventually this piece of collective work we call a blog would be nothing but a collection of laughably incompetent chaff that no one in their right mind would take seriously.  This is of course not what I’m after, especially in this particular instance.

The thing is, I know what I’m talking about.  I research my subject matter.  I move with all due diligence to assure that what i am presenting is, to the best of my knowledge and ability, a complete overview of a given topic.  To allow a lapse in writing etiquette make something I may have worked for several weeks to finish look amateurish is simple foolishness.  It should not happen. But yet it has, even though I have spell checking running in my browser and grammar checking in my word processor.  And the errors do not lie with the tools, they lie with the user.

They almost always do.

So far this article has been pointed at my recent shortcomings.  This is not to say that I think that I am the only one guilty of failing to do some simple proofreading.  Most blogs have one or more typos.  To be honest, there aren’t too many books that have ever been published without a few errors in their pages.  This is not due to any lack of effort by production staffs or copy editors, it is simply human error.  It happens.

I’m also not trying to say that you can’t have an extremely popular blog if you don’t use perfect grammar and composition.  As a case in point, take a look at PerezHilton.com.  The writing is a combination of traditional and leet (L33t) speak, with more than a smattering of completely made up words tossed in for fun.  The result: Somewhere between 650,000 and 1,000,000 visits per day. But Perez is not writing a site that is supposed to make him sound like an expert on a given subject.  He simply reports snippets of news, most of which is aimed at an audience that spends much of its time texting other members about what they’ve just read. If he was attempting to write about “How to be a celebrity blogger”, his site would reek of inexperience by virtue of language alone.

You must know your audience and what they expect.  One of the best ways to gauge this is to look at the most popular blogs in your own niche and study them carefully.  If you find that the language, grammar and cadence of these blogs is informal, then by all means be informal.  If, in the case of blogs on this topic, you find that writing styles tend towards the formal and that spelling and grammar are attended to as a rule, then it best serves both you and your audience to follow along in that style.  It’s what your readers expect, and that should be what you, as an author, are striving to give them.

Another good rule of thumb is that you should never. Ever. Ignore criticism.

It may be that some critiques of your work do not require your attention but in most cases they do at least deserve your notice.  There is a rule in large corporations that for every complaint that is actually submitted, there are at least a hundred people who feel the same way that did not bother to take the time to tell you.  They simply move on to another provider.  It’s a good rule to keep in mind.

So to the person who let me know in no uncertain terms that my oversights in spelling and grammar had cost me her loyalty, I thank you.  Even though you will probably not be around to see the changes in my work ethic, I think that future readers will appreciate that I have taken your words to heart.  I will strive to do better.  It’s all I can do.

To the others out there who are doing their best to make a buck out of this internet thing.  make sure you pay attention to spell check.  Write your piece and walk away for a few hours.  Then read over it to make sure there is nothing you’ve missed.  It’s what I’ll be doing from now on.

I’m Jerry D. Russell, and I approve this message.