The Sunday Roast

Coming To You Live From The White House

This week's interview is with Abraham Lincoln,
who writes the blog Brookeville Daily Photo.

The first of the standard questions. Why do you blog?

If I say, some people have a lot to say and only a lifetime to say it, would that sound self-centered? It is not meant to be, but I began this life being delivered by a midwife and lived in absolute poverty during those so-called formative years. My folks were divorced. The war was taking everything and making the rest subject to rationing but only if you had money to buy. So we became self-supporting. In my whole lifetime I have made do, as we say, with what life gives and often take what was needed from Nature without asking or thanking.

I regret all of that and wished my family would never have to go through those kinds of times. And they haven't and each is doing the best they can under their circumstances. In my lifetime I learned many things and lived many different ways and did lots of jobs that somehow were supposed to be beyond my reach, but I did them anyway. I learned many valuable lessons from that.

Blogging is a way for me to show and tell what my life is like; what I made out of it; and where I intend to go from here.

What's the story behind your blog name?

I wanted and tried to name it a lot of things but I had to follow the rules, more or less, and name my blog after the place I Iive as in Brookville, Ohio - hence the name Brookeville Daily Photo.

What is the best thing about being a blogger?

For me it is meeting people.

What key advice would you give to a newbie blogger?

I have seen and still see new bloggers struggling with visitors. I land on blogs that are perfectly good in all respects but a "0" under visitors. I look at it and am stunned that more people don't know about this blog and visit it.

My key advice is to return visits. If somebody stops and leaves a comment on your blog, do them a favor and go to their blog and say hi, compliment them on their work and leave without getting them upset. If you actually know something about whatever it is they posted, then share your knowledge about that subject with them. Do not try to fake it because your comment will stand out like a wet spot in the front of your pants. Read. Read their post. Answer
appropriately.

There is a well-established routine all bloggers seem to follow. When they are new to the blog area you reside in, they show up as a visitor almost every day of the week and leave a nice comment. They are making an initial effort to get your attention and they are doing this to built up a following. Sometimes it actually works.

Once your statistical counters reveals to you that you are getting several hundred visitors every day of the week and maybe 30 to 100 comments, you are not done. The real work of being a blogger is just beginning, at least for me. Now it is my turn to go beyond all those comments and visitors to reach new people on my own, to be the newbie and introduce myself to them and hope they follow my links to my place. Most do.

What is the most significant blog post you've ever read?

This is extremely hard for me to answer. Honestly. There is a lot of poor writing in the blog world - some of it is pitiful. I hate to see an excellent photograph not worth more a title. I will have to think about this since I have been blogging since the early days of ModBlog and there were some good photographers and writers back then whose work I did admire. I have seen good ones here whose posts have made an impression on me because of their writing. Or, because of their photography. But the combination is rare.

What is the most significant blog post you've ever written?

I think each one is significant. If I didn't I wouldn't post it. Some are better than others but it depends on whether I am disgusted with the president in his whine house or if I am trying to be funny. It is hard to be serious in an environment where the total amount of time most visitors spend on a blog is counted in seconds and where the only page most ever see is the front page and the archives are something only a select few click on. I would have to take some time and think about this one too. I keep everything I have ever written and it fills many hard drives.

Today's Sunday Roast with Abraham Lincoln is the 29th in a weekly series of interviews with bloggers from around the world.