Secrets of an Ace Blogger or,
UD Tells All

Margaret Soltan (aka UD, as in University Diaries) has buried in the comments section of a recent post the secrets to her success as a blogger.

Some excerpts:

... I don’t do anything, technologically, BUT internet, and when I do internet, I only blog or read. No video games, no Face Book stuff, etc. I buy almost nothing online. I read very few other blogs. I’m on no listservs.

... I have no tv, and I have no Blackberry or whatever. I don’t know how to text on my cell phone.

... I also don’t drive, so I’m not wasting time that way. On the metro, I’m writing longhand — journal entries, essays, blog entries which I’ll post later that day.

Part of the answer is also that I’m a fast writer (at least relative to the people I know) and (by any standard) a fast typist.

... I’ve been blogging for quite a long time in blog years, and I’ve been keeping a blog whose focus has become pretty refined — which makes it easier to work quickly. I know exactly what I’m doing when I go to Google News. One thing, for instance, that makes work quicker for me is that I’m now following a particular group of stories - some very specific, like where’s that pig on the Colby campus? - and some general, like what’s the next outrage in bigtime football and basketball? — and these sorts of stories are easily found and reasonably easily commented upon.

Also - keep in mind my remarkable privilege in having the sort of job — tenured college professor — that allows me a good deal of discretion in the use of my time away from the classroom. I’m not desperately working away at the internet in an addictive way in the few moments I have each day for it — it’s much easier for me, probably, to assimilate the activity into my day than it is for a lot of other people, because I have a longer day, if you will, to myself.

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So eliminate distraction, focus, and systematically keep an eye on the literature. Attempt to integrate work/life in such a way that neither is strained. Sounds like a good recipe for a superior blogger or a superior scientist.