Creating Content From A Substantive-less Blogosphere

22 July, 2006. 397 words.

A Virginia “Weekend Without Echoes” post by Thomas Krehbiel

One day I had absolutely nothing to write about. I read the blogs, I read the news, and I despaired. There was nothing interesting going on, nothing that needed comment, and I had a self-imposed deadline to meet.

I’d come face-to-face with the harsh reality of the blogosphere: After you filter out all the bluster and righteous indignation, there’s virtually nothing left.

That’s why I’m fond of this “Weekend Without Echoes” event. Lately I’ve been making a conscious effort to stay away from writing about why blogger X or blogger Y is stupid, and focus mainly on the issues that blogger X and blogger Y are talking about. The problem is, blogger X and blogger Y are almost always talking about why some other blogger Z is stupid, or even worse, just cutting and pasting a big quote from blogger Z. So unless I want to write about why blogger X and blogger Y are misrepresenting blogger Z, which I think I’ve pretty much done to death already, there’s no substance left to write about.

And there’s an even more insidious problem. Even after I come across an issue that interests me, the number and character of issues, and my opinion of them, remains pretty constant from day to day. For example, Iraq is just as much of a foreign policy issue today as it was a week ago or a month ago or a year ago, and my opinion on it hasn’t changed much. So when news comes out of Iraq, unless it radically alters my perception of the “war,” there isn’t much to write except either the news itself or a restatement of my opinion on Iraq. And being a good object-oriented programmer, data redundancy goes against my principles. (Clearly, I would suck as a politician.)

So when you add it all up, unless a new issue pops up that I have some unique view of every single day, it’s difficult to find a blogging subject. But if I don’t write something every day, I’ll quickly fall out of the blogging habit and never write anything. It’s a conundrum! I guess this is the same problem that talk radio faces all the time.

The moral of this story is: When there’s nothing to write about, write about it! :)

Tomorrow: The Moral Authority Of The Bible

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