Author Blog- David McMahon

Humour plays a big part, as does a certain percentage of healthy irreverence. There is light-hearted poetry – yes, I confess I was influenced by Edward Lear and Ogden Nash when I was very little. There are plenty of my original photographs from around the world – you can even catch a glimpse of a grizzly bear that charged me while I was in the Yukon recently. There is a “post of the day’’ segment with the best links each weekday.

I’m told that one of the hallmarks of my blog is the post titles. Readers say the titles are grin-inducing – which is a wonderful thing to hear, because people who drop in to read my blog know that they are guaranteed a chuckle every time they visit, without descending to the banal.

I have been a journalist all my life. My proudest professional achievement was being nominated for a national Walkley Award, and I’ve also been shortlisted twice in the past four years for a national News Award.

In my early twenties I was given a dream job and I travelled the world as a sports journalist, reporting from all the great stadiums and venues that I had read so much about in my childhood. My upbringing in India, combined with those amazing years of travel, really broadened my mind and led me on a quest for knowledge.

I started blogging on a whim. Last week I guess that whim was validated when I chalked up my quarter-of-a-millionth page view. Then a couple of hours later I got chosen as a Blog Of Note. But these things don’t happen overnight, and every blogger needs to build readership patiently. VERY patiently!

I started my blog on 27 December 2005 but I wrote one post and then the site just sat dormant for about a year. Then I wrote a handful of scattered posts and forgot about the blog again. Eventually, I decided in late 2006 to write at least one post a day. That was a huge commitment of time for me, because I work full-time, I am a hands-on father and I also write novels and travel as a photographer – but the discipline of maintaining a blog has been tremendous.

I find it really concentrates the mind and produces an intense clarity of vision, as well as immediate concentration patterns. By this I mean I can shoot a dozen frames of a scene, and find that the post is writing itself in my head. By the time I get home to my computer, I am able to write the day’s post in just a few minutes, instead of pondering over it for hours.

This means I write instinctively and quickly. And as I’ve always told other writers (I mentor several of all ages from around the globe) blogging is best suited to those who write as if they are describing something to their closest friends. It brings a certain quality of intimacy to writing – and therefore those who read it feel that they are being embraced by the words.

Blogging is not a chore. It is a pleasure. I wouldn’t do it if I felt it were an imposition on my time.

For the first year, I didn’t even bother with a stat counter. Why? Because it just wasn’t important to me, honestly. But when I decided to post every day, I opted for SiteMeter and the results have been gratifying.

The most page views I’ve had in a single day is just under 8500 – but I remember all too well the days when I got five or six a day and thought that was tremendous! Getting 100 hits in a day was a huge achievement. Reaching the consistent daily average of 240 was a really big deal, because it meant that I was getting one hit every ten minutes. Recently I got more than 100 an hour – but you have to do the hard yards first and really establish yourself and find a niche in your own headspace if you want to provide a niche for your readers.

No, I don’t have any ads on my blog.

Anyone with a sense of humour.

I guess there is something for everybody. In particular, the post titles are designed to bring a smile to people’s faces. Each day I begin with an offbeat, quirky news item. Then an hour later there is the main post of the day, which is always photographic in nature, supported by text. Shortly after midday there is a humorous poem posted. And finally I end my day by nominating the Post Of The Day, to send my readers to other bloggers whose work I have enjoyed.

An hour each day.

Because it will always make you smile.

Post every day. Write from your heart. And if you can, always use a photograph, a graphic or an image of some description to illustrate your posts. Newspapers and websites have images to break the monotony of continuous typeface – and that works equally for blogs.

This blog can be visited at http://david-mcmahon.blogspot.com/