Bloggers Beware—the Dreaded Diva Disease may lie just Ahead

I’m sure there may be many of you who are unaware of this threat. But when I describe it’s symptoms you’ll recognize it for what it is.

A diva, in today’s language, is someone who is high maintenance, who has to have things just so in order to be satisfied. 

Many of us fall into that trap with our blog posts. We believe our grammar, syntax and style must be perfect before we click publish.

Actually nothing could be farther from the truth. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating sloppy writing. But, I am on a mission to get some of you to relax a little and get on with it. Blog posts are supposed to be short, to the point and, above all, conversational. And let’s face it, we all sometimes speak in sentence fragments.

Besides all that, mistakes in this medium are easily correctable. It’s not like we have to reprint a book or magazine.

Being a perfectionist with a blog post is a colossal waste of time. I know, we all want our posts to go viral and be referred to for years as a masterpiece, but that is highly unlikely. Day to day blogging is almost disposable writing—it’s here for a day or two and then gone—left to linger in the archives.

That isn’t to say it’s without benefit, but it’s the sum of what we say and how we say it that proves our value to our readers.

So how do we cure ourselves of the Dreaded Diva Disease?

• Set a time limit. Blogging isn’t something we can invoice a client for so we shouldn’t spend too much time and effort in its implementation. It CAN augment our income by showing what we can do and proving our worth as a writer, but it isn’t an income source.
• Find a system to writing your blog, and USE it. Here’s how I compile a blog post. First I write it out in a word document, then I read it out loud, finally a do a quick grammar and spelling check. After that I publish it. Then on to the next task.
• Post more often. Yep, you read that right. If you’re agonizing over every word and nuance in your post you have too much time on your hands and you need to step up the frequency of your posts. This will do two things. First, it will force you to spend less time because your deadlines are tighter Second, it will require you to relax your standards.

Now it’s your turn. Have you discovered you suffer from Triple D? Have you battled this disease successfully? If so, let us in on your secret.

And don’t forget to join the conversation!

Blessings,

Edie