I just spent the last 2 days at BlogHer in San Jose, California. As most conferences go, I met a lot of inspiring and interesting people, all of whom are writing blogs about virtually everything: from recipe blogs, to mommy blogs, to political, to sex blogs. You name it, they're writing it. And of course, it being BlogHER, for the women bloggers of the blogosphere, the crowd was predominantly women. A nice switch from most other conferences where the men normally out number the women 3 to 1. (But that will change and evolve in the not-too-distant future, you can count on it.)
I took away quite a bit, and have posted some notes on some of the sessions on The Standard. But the most interesting and inspiring conversation about blogging and blog writing styles was, ironically, with a man. And that got me thinking: it shouldn't matter, should it?
I spoke with J. Craig Williams, a lawyer and blogger from Newport Beach, for about 30 minutes one evening after the last session of the day had wrapped. We spoke about writing, blogging, gender - he gave me useful writing tips and advice about the approach, the voice, the length, and the wit. Craig attacks any piece of writing with this process:
Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge
The madman wants to BLAH! it all out there, so much to say!, the architect configures the appropriate structure to blah, while the carpenter builds the piece and the judge, well that's the editor.
I think a lot of people, including myself, just write sometimes for the sake of writing, blogging, churning it out, getting something online. This type of work is not quality, and therefore undoubtedly suffers.
Oh, and keep posts shorter, rather than longish (whoops!).
The conference was really well run, the Wifi was severely lacking, but that's to be expected at these things... though it shouldn't be!
There are a lot of wonderful women writers and bloggers out there blogging useful and often random material. And many of them are fantastic blogs. Check the site for the line-up of blogger (and vlogger!) panelists, where you'll find the many, many blogs to start reading! Follow up on session podcasts that will be posted to the site really soon. Check out the conference pics, see what you missed and sign up for next year!