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Taking a Blogging Class at Grub Street
By david_yamada on Tue, 12/15/2009 - 11:02am
Too often, blogging is characterized as a chance to sit down at the computer and yammer away to our heart's content, without much editing, planning, or, umm, thinking. And then we expect the world to somehow discover and embrace our pearls of wisdom.
There is a better way! Yesterday evening I attended a seminar on "workshopping" blogs and websites at Grub Street (www.grubstreet.org). It was instructive and thought provoking to see blogging treated as a form that can be reviewed and critiqued like any other type of serious writing. The instructor, Amy Marcott, reviewed our blogs and websites beforehand and prepared a slide presentation highlighting various posts and pages. She also distributed handouts containing samples of our writing and advice on building better blogs and websites.
We spent much of the three-hour session talking about each other's work -- yup, in a manner very similar to a fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry workshop. I learned as much from the comments about the work of other participants as I did from those about my own blog. (Can't resist the chance to self-plug: Minding the Workplace at http://newworkplace.wordpress.com.) I enjoyed the seminar and learned a lot from it, so much that I may sign up for a more extended multi-session workshop in January.
So perhaps this is the next wave of attention to blogging: Not necessarily more blogs, but rather better blogs. Sounds pretty good to me.
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In addition, fellow WordPress users may be interested to know that WordCamp is coming to Boston on January 23: http://2010.boston.wordcamp.org/
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Comments
It remains amusing to see
It remains amusing to see bloggers slowly realizing that editors and similar terrible elitists exist for a reason. Blogging: destroying the wheel in order to reinvent it.
That being said, you should ask for your money back.
Money well spent
I haven't attended the grub street course in this incarnation, but I attended a similar one last year taught by Amy Marcotte and it was well worth the money. Far from "re-inventing the wheel", successful blogging requires a raft of skills that aren't a concern to print journalists. Amy's course covered ways to improve your blog's visibility to search engines, how to write posts that encourage new visitors, and what design elements to consider when setting up your blog.
When I took the course, it was focused on writers who were building blogs to gain exposure for their work. Being a published novelists or freelance journalist doesn't mean you know how to use a blog to promote yourself, and there were plenty of successful "editors and similar terrible elitists" in the class who benefited from her instruction.
Btw, you may want to check with an editor or similar terrible elitist, because "that being said" doesn't mean what you think it does.
Interesting
I was hoping to attend one of Grub Street's upcoming sessions on food writing to improve my blog (http://www.fussy-eater.com). Thanks for the helpful feedback on their classes!