5 Blog Posts You Should Never Ever Write

1. The post about how you haven’t written a post in a while. Nobody cares. Don’t do it. This kind of post is also a really easy way to continue to not actually write a post.
2. An intro post. When you have only one post on your blog, the only person who’s going to read it is somebody who already knows who you are anyway. Just dive in and write the post, and trust that the details will be illuminated for your reader as the blog unfolds. (I have also spent a lot of time down rabbit holes trying to put pieces together and connect the dots with blogs I’ve just discovered. It’s thoroughly engaging. Dare to be an enigma!)
3. The post where you express your feelings about the same controversial topic that everybody else is posting about. Unless you have an extraordinary point of view onto the issue, and even then maybe close your browser and think for a week. You are not obligated to wade into fracases. It probably doesn’t serve you. It’s unlikely that it even serves the fracasee.
4. The post where you finally get real. This usually comes about after somebody has spent a few months presenting an online self that has proven unsustainable. The best way to avoid this post is to start out real from the outset. Be unabashedly yourself. Don’t try to fit into an online template. If keeping up with your posts is more work that you’d like it to be, find a way to cut down on the labour. The other reason why you shouldn’t post like this is because using your pain for clicks can get to be a bad habit and make you miserable. It is better to be happy and obscure than viral and desperately wounded.
5. The post where you upload that political meme. Don’t do it, least of all because it means that your online space will look like everybody else’s, but also because there’s never just one story and if you’re going to pontificate on something, at least do the issue a service by bothering to use your own words.