Deep blogging thoughts

While everyone else is talking about patch 3.1 (which I'm sure I will as well in a couple of days), I have been thinking about this blog. There was some talk pre patch 3.1 around the WOW blogosphere around blogging and improving one's blog. First of all, why do I blog? As I said in my first post:

"I don't intend for this blog to really give any insights that haven't already been given elsewhere, I mean 9 million people (so they say) play this game! Am I going to come up with anything ground shattering? No... I also probably won't be doing complicated calculations on spirit vs +5 mana or some intense strategy discussions. Instead I thought it'd be fun to have a place to start tracking my adventures in game, post funny screen shots, and basically just share my point of view."

I think I really just wanted some place to be able to chronicle my experiences in game. I was part of a very tiny tight knit guild and wanted to talk about those relationships. A lot of my first posts were simple recounts of guild instance runs (melee strike force FTW!) or the tank-healer relationship I have with Jess. I talked about making money and professions as well. When I first started blogging I think I was one of a few bloggers who talked about fishing and this post written 18 months ago still gets read.

So that's why I started... why do I keep blogging over a year and a half later? Sometimes I've felt that this blog has kept me playing the game, if that makes sense. But there are also times where I've felt the pressure to do an interesting or funny post. But I'm also one of those people who you may run across on the road... where you look across to the next car at a stoplight and see a girl who is laughing by herself. Well I am that girl, a girl who has a lot of random things that come across her brain, many of which she is amused by. I'm also a girl who can be incredibly corny, sentimental, sarcastic or just plain feisty (despite the "blog no evil" cartoon above, I have posted about asshats I've encountered ingame), all of which I think have been obvious on this blog.

But I am definitely intrigued why people beyond immediate folks I know read this blog. I rarely do healing posts anymore and never really did many posts on strategy or responding to changes in game or crunching numbers or anything. Thus, I do think that the fact that I have a blog shows that anyone can do this... and you don't have to be some super duper theory crafter.

If I were to give some advice to someone contemplating starting a WOW blog, couple of random thoughts:

1. Don't try to be the next Phaelia, or BRK, or Big Bear Butt, or Megan at Out of Mana. Just don't... cuz you can't. I think part of what resonates with the many readers of these big blogs is the individual personality and flavor of these bloggers. Even when they do/did serius bzness theorycrafting posts, their personalities came through. So as cheesy as it is, just be yourself.

2. Blogging about WOW does change the way you look at the game, and thus your game experience. Also realize that blogging definitely takes time. If you are thinking that you should cut back on WOW time, I would hesitate suggesting that you start a WOW blog.

3. Just post. Its hard to know sometimes why certain posts resonate well with readers while others don't. I've found sometimes that the posts that I've worked the hardest on may get no traction at all, while other posts I've just done on a whim get good feedback. Its funny to me that my post that been talked about the most was one I did about a year ago about similarities in WOW and real life locations. It was talked about in WOW Insider at the time and indirectly mentioned again earlier this week. Did I think at all this would be my most read post? Nope, not at all.