Blogging... the Bliss and the Blahs

Last week I wrote about how blogging is making me fat. I “tried” to get into a home exercise routine and bent myself on more household chores than the usual just to keep my adrenaline pumping, but the lure of the laptop and the thoughts clamoring to be written down were a force to reckon with. I succumbed to my addiction… er passion… uhm hobby. I’m trying to make this sound less alarming than it already is.

So I figured that I can’t help it. I really love to be in front of the computer and type away these rants and raves in my head. But since it’s making me fat, I can’t justify it any other way than to earn from it. So lately I have been desperately trying to learn the ropes of Paid Blogging and man it ain’t easy. First of all, if you are a techie klutz (like me) this whole HTML can be very overwhelming. In fact, now it’s about XMLs and we’re not talking about shirt sizes here. If you want to be a Problogger, you have to have at least some of these words (heck they’re not even words, just abbreviations) in your vocabulary: RSS, SEO, PPP, SMO… and then you have to learn about page ranks, technorati, widgets, and so on and so forth. The BLARGON keeps on growing. You have to be smacked right in the middle of the blogosphere action to catch up.

Aside from my intention to optimize the generous time I spend online, I figured that blogging might actually help us make ends meet in the coming months. With the lean season for events production approaching this June to August, I’m about to push the panic button again. I have to find other income generating projects especially since we are planning to purchase a car (Why? That’s another blog soon). Whenever I read about my friend Frances blogging about buying a new pair of shoes or silverware or fancy furniture out of her blog earnings alone, I can’t help but feel green with envy. Now that’s the kind of financial freedom I’d like to have. There’s nothing more satisfying than to be paid for doing what you love.

I got into blogging basically for fun. I’m a writer by heart but I just don’t want to write scripts for boring corporate shows for equally boring clients, who nitpick at everything for nitpicking’s sake. I wanted some creative freedom. I wanted to write using my real voice. And since I didn’t get around to building my career in a magazine, the blogosphere was indeed a blessing. It provided a space for my long-time frustration – to be a columnist like Carrie Bradshaw. I did, by the way, have a very provocative Cosmo-Girl kind of blog five years ago (back when blogging was still primitive) which I had to delete because my conservative family in Davao threw a ginormous hissy fit over it. My mom, who ironically is a New Yorker, unfortunately didn’t see the witty wisdom that her Carrie-wannabe daughter wanted to share to the world. She almost disowned me. So I had to shut it down. I met my future husband (again), became a Christian and had closure with my Carrie alter-ego.

I got into blogging again last year after I lost my television job. Writing down my reflections on life, love and my lost career proved to be therapeutic. God was sweet enough to send me affirmations through nice comments sent by friends, anonymous fans and even famous people. Months passed and I noticed that I was already growing a humble-sized fan base. It turns out that some people found most of my stories heartwarming and on other times funny. So from blogging for myself I turned into having the sudden responsibility of writing for my loyal audience.

Now, I’m in love with blogging but I would like blogging to love me back too. I’ve been signing up on several Paid Blogging sites but I’m still far from having financial success. I browsed through several paid blogs and forgive me for saying this but most of them aren’t even written well. Pardon me but a lot of them are trash and it’s puzzling why and how in the world wide web did they ever get those high traffic volume. People actually like reading that stuff? The internet has surely lowered the bar for creative writing. A big exemption to that of course is my friend Frances’s blog. She’s always been a fantastic writer and the fact that she works as a magazine editor exposes her to a lot of commercial content that she can write about.

I’ve already sought some mentorship from probloggers I’ve met online and Jeff has been very genial and generous in giving me tips on paid blogging. He’s actually suggesting that I just start a new commercial blog altogether and this time write for a niche market. I have to buy my own domain because he said that most advertisers prefer self-hosted blogs. Then I have to tweak the codes in my layout, learn the language as I go along, market my blog in all sorts of social networks, and sign up to his recommended paid blogging sites. It sounds easier than done.

I mused about his advice practically the whole day, asking myself, what can I write about? What’s my niche market? What’s my expertise? And then I realized that I’m actually just a jack or should I say jill-of-all-trades-master-of-none. I think I just hit the dead end.

I still want to get my hands on paid blogging. I think I deserve to have a slice of that pie, do you agree? But for now I want to remain true to myself and to my readers so I want to keep this blog but also hope to earn from it at least. I think I’ve already done a lot of additions to it that needs to be cleaned up. I don’t know where to begin. So if there’s a Good Samaritan problogger out there who’s willing to teach me (and divulge all trade secrets) how to effectively monetize this site, please email me and make me a blogger-naire!