A thousand blog posts and this is what I have learned

Blogging is sort of like being the cat here.

Welcome to my thousandth blog post. Or thousandth on this blog. It is well over a thousand if you count the other nine still active blogs that I maintain (more or less maintain) and the several blogs that over the years have been deleted in the course of hosting service changes. It is close to a couple thousand if you toss in all the half written (and sometimes fully written but too trollish for prime time) posts that I have never been bothered to hit publish on.

This blog was started on July 16, 2007...which means that I have been blogging six years (provided that basic math is my friend today--it is still early...basic math might not be speaking to me today). Well, longer than six years, I moved over to Blogger on June 4, 2007 after my previous blogging platform was discontinued by a web host service. At first, I thought that I was going to be mainly blogging about the joys of writing (aka my Musings from the Inkwell). Then, I decided to spin off my Golden Dawn, Wicca, and magical rants and raves--hence this blog that you are currently reading. It was my first subject spin-off (now, I own ten blogs on Blogger).

So what have I learned over the years?

Do not google yourself!!!

Seriously, googling yourself is not worth it. If people are upset with you, they will tend to tell you in no uncertain terms in your own comment section (with the exception of non-professional bloggers who think that you will go read their blogs if they refuse to comment directly on your post...professional bloggers know better). And if people agree with you, either you will hear crickets, they will agree in the comment section, or they will blog about it on their own blogs. Your biggest hits will actually not be findable by Google...because you will be referred to as "some blogger," "some troll," "some lunatic," or one of the terms that your parents used for you during one of your more brilliant moments--my favorite is "turnip head."

There is no conspiracy on the internet--just waves of people blogging about other people's blogs.

I know that one is hard to believe...if you are not a semi-professional blogger. Truth of the matter is that the blogosphere feeds upon itself. Person A writes about Subject XYZ; Person B is desperate to find something to blog about, and decides XYZ is a good subject; then Person C decides that Person A and Person B are both out of their f***ing minds. Persons D though infinity just repeat the actions of B and C. So on any given day, there is only one new subject at best, and everyone will comment about it within the week.

Honest book reviewing is best done by people who are trolls at heart.

Having done more than my fair share of book reviews, I realize that the only way one can honestly review a book that is badly written and/or thought out is to have the heart of a troll. And not to care when the author points it out that you are not a nice person (and they will). Yes, critics meet under bridges to share stories of our hate mail.

Of course, having the heart of a troll extends to every honest blog post that one ever writes...because there is always someone that you are going to upset. In fact, inside the professional blogging circles, one is not considered to be doing the job properly if one is not upsetting people.

Troll cat does all my book reviews now.

There is such a thing as being a professional blogger.

I know that there are some people in the occult community that do not consider me a real blogger because I have ads on my blog, and ebooks that I occasionally promote, a whole line of erotica books that I do not advertise--to these people, I have to point out that the only things that I am really good at is writing and annoying people--if I do not take advantage of that and turn it into professional rage (the only reason to remain a blogger on some days), using ads and tacky self-promotion to earn money, then it is back to flipping burgers...and do you really want me to touch your food and have access to guns at the same time?! No, it is better that I get paid to blog. And among non-occult bloggers, being professional means that you cashed at least one check from AdSense (not everyone has the occultist viewpoint that money is not to be sought after).

Cat pictures sell!!!

Who would have guessed that one?! Three of my top ten posts are cat pictures posts. And this is an occult blog. Go figure. Of course, as a worshipper of Bast, I am obligated to post the occasional cat picture, and therefore it just proves that I am in the correct line of work.

If I had to start all over, I would write about economics.

Seriously, if I had to start a brand new blog purely for the purposes of professional blogging, I would not write about the occult. No, I would go for economics instead. Because everyone reads rants and raves about economics. And I would get a classier type of troll...well, maybe. And there is always something new to blog about in that field every day. That last part is important...because having done a thousand blog posts on a subject (minus bouts and fits of cat pictures), I know that being able to open up a newspaper, turning on the television news, or looking at the search engines trends, and having a new blog post idea just leap into the boat is a godsend. Especially if blogging has became a large part of your income stream.

Here is to the next thousand posts. I am embracing the dark side of blogging and letting the cat pictures flow.

Success as a blogger earns you a dead mouse on your desk.