Why The Comment “Great Post” Is The Last Thing Any Op/Ed Blogger Wants To See.

This is part 3 of my now established series on op/ed blogging. Who knows how long this will last. Not me.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall
Dylan

When I was a young warthog, in grade 13 at David & Mary Thomson Collegiate in Scarborough, I wrote what turned out to be my first marketing piece. The client, oddly enough, was me.
The piece in question was a history essay on the French Revolution. In this essay, I drew comparisons between the French Revolution and the counter-cultural revolution that was going on here in North America. It was a lot of fun and I got to use some Dylan quotes, like the one above, which have been part of my writing for many years.
After I got back my A on the paper, my history teacher took me aside and told me she thought that this was a brilliant piece of writing. And that she knew people in their junior and senior years of university that could not write at this level.

The Long & Winding Road
Lennon/McCartney

Many years and millions of words, poems, lyrics, short stories, screenplays, a novel and close to 1000 articles later, I feel I am finally starting to get the hang of it. Most of the good writers I know, and there are not really all that many, feel the same way.
Their work is constantly a work in progress. But they have reached a level with their writing and understand enough about their craft to know that there’s always room for improvement.

The More Challenging The Comment The Better

In the op/ed blogging world, which is where I spend a lot of my time, the objective of writing is a little different. What you are trying to do, for the most part, is state your point of view and challenge others to poke holes in it or add some perspective to it or share experiences that they have had in the same vein.
This is how op/ed bloggers learn. I’m flattered when someone tells me I have written what they consider to be a great post. But the little buzz you get from that is all you get.
When I was blogging over in the Lumpy Kingdom, they actually had for a time, some sort of auto-responder that generated a “Great Post” comment.
All this represented to me and a few other people I know, was ample evidence of just how much they missed to the point of having a publishing platform in the first place.
And that probably explains why it’s shriveling up like a prune now.
Op/ed blogs are, when they work, conversation starters. They could be about something that pisses you off to get to going, or they could be about something that strikes a nerve or conjures up a memory or even tempts you to tell the writer he’s full of shit.
And these are all good things because writers learn from them. And that adds knowledge to their memory bank and they use it as they go along.
So if you are tempted to just write ‘great post’ as a comment here, take a breath and then tell me what you really want to say about it.
Because ‘great post’ is the given that has gotten you right to the end of this post…which is here.
Have a great Sunday. As usual, likes, shares & comments are always appreciated.

Other Posts In This Series Include:

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/trolls-just-like-cockroaches-but-much-easier-to-control

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/the-op-ed-blogger-s-survival-guide-to-bebee

If your business has reached the point where talking to a communication professional would be the preferred option to banging your head against the wall or whatever, lets talk.

If you want to read more of my posts, you can do that here: 

https://www.bebee.com/publisher/@jim-murray
Download my free ebook, Small Business Communications For The Real World, here:

https://onwordsandupwords.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/small-business-communications-for-the-real-world/

All my profile and contact information can be accessed here:

https://www.bebee.com/producer/@jim-murray/this-post-is-my-about-page


All content copyright 2016 Jim Murray.