Thursday, January 16, 2014

It's About Blogging

Last night I watched Julie & Julia. The film about the woman in New York who decides to cook all the 524 recipes (including the lobsters) in Julia Child's 'Mastering The Art Of French Cooking.'

I knew it was about cooking, obviously, but it's also about blogging. More about that in a minute. First a bit about the film.

God, Meryl Streep was annoying as Julia Child. I watched an episode of the real Julia on You Tube afterwards. Streep mimicked her brilliantly but with enough exxageration to make her irritating in the extreme. The real Julia Child was slightly softer round the edges I think. However, it was her mannerisms that were irritating not her character. And it was Meryl Streep - you can't not like Meryl Streep. So I made myself like her.

There's a bit near the end though when I hated her with impunity. I had to reason that by this time she was a 90 year old who hadn't spent the last almost two hours getting to know the lovely Julie. And she knew nought about blogging, that's for sure.

Which brings me nicely back to the blogging. This was an added and unforseen bonus to the film. I identified with every step of the blog birthing process. From getting your first comment - from your mother so it doesn't count, to realizing that people out there, whom you don't even know personally, read you. Of course I haven't replicated the scene where she finds 65 telephone messages on her answer phone from publishers, literary agents, tv stations, film studios, magazines, etc...

I came away with two lessons from Julie's blogging experience. As I approach my 3rd Blogiversary on Sunday it feels like a good time to learn, adapt, and share.

1. There is always the big debate at blog conferences - to niche or not to niche. All the guest speakers (who are usually writers but not bloggers) say you need to stick to a specific niche. Then all the experienced bloggers strongly object. Most of us started out with a blogging niche in mind and then felt perfectly comfortable writing about anything and everything that came up along the way. After all, even if I write about car mechanics or interior design I'm still a midlife single mum.

But I can't deny that it was the niche that made Julie's blog successful.

2. Julie sat down and wrote about her days like she was writing a diary. Every day, no great issues to grapple with and no attention grabbing titles. Just a simple account of what she cooked, her day, and how she felt about it all. And the readers read and they loved it.

I've been slacking in the blog department recently. Some of it is to do with blogging for three years - this Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year, etc... isn't really much different from last year. I've told you all about the Jewish festivals and Israeli celebrations. I've described my weekends on my friends' kibbutz and at my cousins who live overlooking the Mediterranean. How many times can you cover the same topic?

So my plan for 2014 is to blog the niche a bit more. Everyday I am surprised about the things single motherhood presents which are vastly different from parenting with a significant other. I'm five years into it and I'm still realizing the reality of being a single mum with no back up. Being an expat my situation is rather extreme but then so is cooking 524 recipes in 365 days.

See you tomorrow for some more simple thoughts from a midlife singlemum.

10 comments:

  1. I've not seen the film, I shall look out for it, but blogging for me has changed so much in the few years that I've been doing it. The last couple of years I've really stepped back from it all and completely lost my mojo, but I trying to make a concerted effort this year to get back into it.

    Yes niche blogs can be popular, but do you always want to blog about the same thing? Surely your experience as expat in Israel is your niche, but you should blog about whatever you want to. x

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    1. Interesting you should think that is my niche because here I'm surrounded by expats writing blogs about being an expat in Israel. I see being an older single mother by choice (stupidly inaccurate title) as being my niche.

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  2. I usually go to the cinema now with my daughter, and that film was one of the last ones that I saw with friends, and for that reason I remember it really well. And in real life it does seem to be the niche bloggers who do well, who get the books deal and the best freebies etc. Once it's a good blog and a popular niche, of course!

    Now my life has settled down more, I'm finding that I have covered most of the regular things that happen too, so I will be interested to see how you get on with our new direction. Best of luck too!

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    1. Well it's n ow Friday evening and I can't think of anything to write. LOL

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  3. I saw that film before and enjoyed it. I was struck by the blogging part of it too. Of course she became hugely successful and I guess it makes sense that it's the niche bloggers (with great writing skills) who enjoy more success. Sigh.
    I, like you say, have been struggling to find things to write about of late. It's like I've lost all my words... or ideas. I've definitely lost 'my niche' as I can't write too much about him any more and my overall niche of 'rambling ruminations' is very, very broad!

    xx Jazzy

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    1. I think there's also something in the number of years we've been blogging. Maybe we need a rest. I'm definitely writing less each year. On the other hand, it doesn't matter.

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  4. Now I want to see the film! And I love Meryl Streep too, my favourite actress ever! I started blogging within a niche, and now I write about pretty much everything, but it will get to a point when I will have to stop writing about Little A, and write about me and stuff in general... X

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    1. Definitely worth seeing. However, it didn't inspire me to want to be a French chef - far to complicated. Rather I wanted to get out the toasted sandwich maker and and make cheese toasties or make an omelet.

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  5. This film was why I started my blog!! I watched it and thought I fancy doing that about dieting - the idea was I'd lose weight really quickly and then the most have new diet book would be in shops!! lol x

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    1. Write it anyway, it's a sound philosophy. Or start cooking Fanny Craddock. LOL

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