Tim Tams! I'm super popular!

My son is for the VERY FIRST TIME EVER working on an essay he's very excited about. He finds the topic inspiring: Write about a few of your pet peeves.


I can't blame him. It IS inspiring and I'm going to be a good example and write about some of my pet peeves, too. (I checked his essay. His pet peeves are his little brother, his parents, and the neighbors. He will make an excellent hermit.)


Specifically, these are blogging pet peeves. Go ahead and pull out your Judging Hat. Also, you better scrounge out your Paranoid Delusional hat since you just KNOW I'm talking about YOU. 


First, people should not brag about having a large blog audience if you get all your page views for a post that's not actually what your blog is about. For example, I could say I have thousands of readers. It's true in that I have a post with "Tim Tams" in the title that gets a lot of traffic. But these aren't people who come back to my blog again and again. They're probably just trying to figure out what a Tim Tam is and why people love them with a passion and devotion that defies logic or reason. 


They're just yummy, okay?


Anyway, I guess if I really wanted to, I could say my blog has a bajillion readers, but it's a bajillion by the same reasoning wherein Al Gore invented the Internet.


Secondly, there are a whole lot of people who need to figure out what the word "expert" means. An expert is someone who knows enough about any given subject to teach a friggin' PhD level course on the subject. There are a whole lot of "experts" suddenly running around the blogosphere and I blame two things: blogging conferences and the GRIP of "How To Make Money From Home" articles that litter the Internet. 


Blogging conferences are fine. I think they're incredibly helpful tools for serious bloggers the way that writing conferences are excellent for writers. But everyone who is interested in monetizing their blog is taking this "become an expert in something" route and now we've got a lot of faux-experts. In my opinion (did you know I have one?), you'd be far better served in blogging about what you're passionate about and not trying to come off as an expert. Psst . . . if you're not an expert, we're going to figure it out real quick anyway.


I think this is a pet peeve because I see aspiring writers do it ALL THE TIME. Oh, my gosh. Attention, attention, please! If you don't have a book out or you have just one or two books out so far, YOU'RE NOT AN EXPERT. You do not get to be the be all and end all of wisdom on how to write first person point-of-view or how to get an agent or how to market a book. FOR THE LOVE, people.


There's a difference between that and reflecting on writing. Musing = Totally acceptable. How do you feel about trying to write first person? Talk. At length. It's fine by me. But do not go on for 1000 words about the right way to do it until you're in a position to do so. (You look silly.) A reflection on writing from someone who has something to say but doesn't pretend to be an expert: check out LT Elliot's blog post today at Dreams of Quill and Ink.


I think I've said enough. More than enough. I expect I'll hit publish and find myself soon greeting the angry Villagers of Blog at the front door with pitchforks and everything. 


Fine. FINE, I say. I guess my point is, Be Real, and if that means being an expert in something, have the credentials (training, experience, etc.) to back it up.


And let me repeat: Getting a thousand hits a month on your Granny Velda's applesauce cake recipe does NOT mean you have a large readership if you're writing a humor blog.


Having said all that, I'd like to finish with this . . . I love you. And I'm totally not talking about your blog, okay? It's those other ones.