Mommy Bloggers Have Passion, CBC with LaTara Ham-Ying
April 7, 2009 by Stephanie
LaTara Ham-Ying from Mom Unplugged and I are continuing our cross blog conversation today. We have been defining “Mommy Blogger” through a series of posts here and at Mom Unplugged. If you missed the beginning of the conversation you can catch up here.
LaTara, I’ve been thinking about your definition of “Mommy Blogger” as being “a woman who writes passionately about her life and life as she sees it, sharing some good ideas, products, and more along the way.” I believe you have succinctly captured the essence of mommy bloggers – passion.
Passion is so important when it comes to writing. A blogger can fake it for a couple of posts but, you’re right, eventually the lack of passion shows!
For example, I could write a few articles about my childhood memories of owning dogs. I could be enthusiastic and persuasive; but, after about 3 posts, you are going to realize the topic of dogs is NOT close to my heart. So, there’s really no point in me making the topic of dogs a theme on my blog.
Unfortunately, not everyone understands this, so I see this types of random posts all too often. A blogger writes a short series of great articles on a single topic, her interest fades and then she hops on to another topic. I think you are correct, again, that such theme hopping confuses readers.
I can’t help but wonder if this lack of focus on many blogs is due, not to a lack of passion but rather, to a lack of defined passion.
Let me explain. As women our lives are full of a variety of interests and topics – parents, spouses, friends, children, work, homes, and faith; just to name a few. Each one of those topics has some measure of importance to us. Each one takes up some degree of time, energy and thought.
When we are blogging without a defined focus or passion we write whatever is on our minds at the moment. As a result our blogs appear to be hopping all over the place as our thoughts move from one area to another. The topics may be connected in our minds but seem totally random to our readers.
So, it’s important to the reader for each writer to understand her own individual passions and then build a blog around them. When that happens her writing will be interesting and valuable to readers.
LaTara, my questions to you are: what is the difference between a passion and an interest? What steps can a Mommy Blogger take to determine her passions? And once she recognizes a passion, how does she use it to build a blog?
If you are curious about LaTara’s answers like I am, go here to read what she says.
© photo by cdsessums
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