This isn’t a “Rambling,” I Promise

February 22, 2011 by Amy Sundberg

You may not be surprised to learn that I think a lot about blogging, both in terms of this blog and in terms of best practices. As a consequence, I also tend to read a lot about blogging, although it has become harder and harder to find new material, the more I learn. However, I read a post a few weeks ago that made me stop in my tracks and hit myself on the forehead.Kristen Lamb is another one of my favorite bloggers – she had a killer series on novel structure that I looked forward to every week while it was running – and she also blogs about blogging. In her essay “Selling Our Blog to the Readers,” she talked about a common pitfall, one that I had done myself. Argh! Hence the forehead hit, and I immediately changed my blog per her suggestion.

What was my mistake? On my header, beneath my main title (where it now says “Amy Sundberg’s Blog), I had the text “Amy Sundberg’s Adventures and Ramblings”. Kirsten very rightly points out that we tell our readers how to judge our blogs, and “ramblings” is not a word that holds the most positive of connotations. It makes it sound as if we don’t know what we’re talking about, or as if we haven’t put any thought into what our blogs are about. Now, for some bloggers, that might even be true, but I put a lot of thought into this blog and here I was, accidentally waving my hands around and saying, “Oh, but it’s just something I threw together on the fly, it’s not worth much at all.” Oops.

I wasn’t going to say anything about here, in the hopes that maybe no one had noticed. But then, in the last few weeks, I noticed something very insidious. These sorts of words pop up ALL THE TIME in relation to blogs, and now that I’m paying attention, it’s driving me slightly crazy. Apparently I got the idea in the first place through some kind of evil osmosis of the internet. Plus the use of these words doesn’t even seem to directly correlate with the overall quality of the blog, meaning they aren’t actually a clear signal for whether I want to read the blog or not.

Here is a list of some of the words that now send up my red flag: ramblings, musings, random thoughts, random anything, reflections, ponderings. It’s not that bloggers should never use these words, but if they’re in either the header text for the whole blog or in a blog post title, it’s generally a sign of either lack of focus, lack of confidence, or both. More research made me realize that I don’t care how much I like a particular blogger, most posts with the title “Random Musings” or similar are just not going to grab me. I might go for a round-up of links, if I really like a blogger’s taste in such matters, but other than that, well, I read Facebook and Twitter for my dose of daily random thoughts. I probably don’t need to read a whole blog post of them, given how much reading I do in the average day.

A big thanks to Kristen for setting me straight on this. From now on, I’m going to be doing my very best to avoid “ramblings” and its cousins and not sell myself, and this blog, short.

Can you think of any other red flag words we bloggers should work to avoid?

Posted in Writing | Tagged Amy Sundberg, blog, blogging, mistakes, writing | 15 Comments

15 Responses

on February 22, 2011 at 10:07 am | Reply Danielle

Love this post! I wouldn’t say that words like “ramblings” totally turn me off from reading a blog… but I also always wondered about the redundancy. I mean, blogs are filled with thoughts, right, which inevitably ramble, on a variety of “random” topics.

I tend to -ing my verbs when writing titles, to make them seem more active and engaging. I need to pay more attention to that.
- on February 22, 2011 at 11:14 am | Reply EF Kelley
  
  Yes. Yes you do.
  - on February 22, 2011 at 2:08 pm | Reply Danielle
    
    Haha, I’m TOTALLY on it!
- on February 22, 2011 at 3:24 pm | Reply Amy Sundberg
  
  I think “ramblings” just doesn’t send a clear signal to the reader as to what subject they’re going to be reading about.
  
  Also, I don’t think -ing words are always bad for titles — take “Chasing Amy”, for example. Note also the fine first name choice. 🙂
on February 22, 2011 at 11:07 am | Reply Author Kristen Lamb

OMG this is so funny. I nearly choked on my lunch I laughed so hard. I LOVE that blog header you made. ROFL!!!! I am so happy you got so much out of my blog, but boy you took that lesson to a whole ‘nother level. I am eager to put this in this week’s Mash-Up of Awesomeness.

Thanks for this.

Kristen
- on February 22, 2011 at 3:31 pm | Reply Amy Sundberg
  
  Thank YOU, Kristen! I’ll never see any of those words the same way again. 🙂
on February 22, 2011 at 11:14 am | Reply EF Kelley

Red flag words? Well, I’ve got quite the profane vocabulary, if you’re really interested. But, alas, I haven’t studied the science of blogging.

I, too, love the header. It’s very very Amy. 🙂
- on February 22, 2011 at 3:32 pm | Reply Amy Sundberg
  
  It’s a science now? Hmm, maybe I can earn a B.S. in Blog.
  - on February 22, 2011 at 5:08 pm | Reply Author Kristen Lamb
    
    I think a BS is all we can earn in Blogging…get it? I crack myself up ha ha ha ha ha ha :D.
    
    …ok, I’ll stop.
on February 22, 2011 at 1:01 pm | Reply CrystalSpins

I don’t mind Musing or Pondering if that’s what is really happening. But most of the time you can switch out either of those with the word random or ramble and it is more appropriate.
- on February 22, 2011 at 3:32 pm | Reply Amy Sundberg
  
  That’s a good point. If more care was taken in general in terms of word choice, maybe there wouldn’t be so many red flag words out there. 🙂
on February 23, 2011 at 8:23 am | Reply 10 Ways to Improve Your “Likability Quotient” « Kristen Lamb's Blog

[…] Really cute blog by Amy Sundberg, This isn’t a “Rambling,” I Promise […]
on March 3, 2011 at 8:05 pm | Reply SM Johnson

Hi Amy…

…but rambling sounds so, so… poetic. Bohemian. Random. Senseless. Useless… Oh! I get it.

The cat in the funny header makes me nervous. I just posted a blog titled “The Cat” in my parenting blog. Is talking about cats a red flag? I’ve never had a cat before, and he sort of fascinates me, but maybe my 6 followers won’t agree. Oh dear, I’m rambling.

🙂

Thanks for the red flag tips.

~SM Johnson

PS. I jumped here from Kristen’s blog. Networking at its finest!
- on March 4, 2011 at 9:43 am | Reply Amy Sundberg
  
  Great to see you here, SM! Yes, cats are *definitely* a red flag. You are only allowed to talk about dogs. No cats allowed!
  …
  Well, okay, I might be allowing my own preference to cloud my judgment just a touch! 🙂
on October 25, 2011 at 8:31 am | Reply The Three Kisses of Death on Twitter « The Practical Free Spirit

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