As I’ve been tinkering with my blog the past weeks, I’ve wondered what kind of blog I’m actually writing.  As with the visual theme, I spent some time analyzing other blogs – of writers, entertainers and other venues.  There seem to be many styles to choose from.  Here are some of my personal names for them:

A diary blog is the most personal.  Posts are usually nothing more than a rant of the day from the very specific worldview of the author.  Mood, daily activities, and even slights or arguments are recorded, often in excruciating detail.  I generally dislike this style because it is hard to subject myself to the problems and emotions of someone I don’t know without good reason, however entertainingly they might tell them.

A topical blog is at the opposite extreme.  Posts are composed (meaning deliberate), well-crafted, and focused on a specific area of expertise that the author is knowledgeable in.  Often, very little about the personal life of the author is known at all.  Sometimes the area of expertise is somewhat personal, but the delivery will then be fairly dispationate.  I read several of these, and applaud the authors for providing true value to the greater community.

A personal PR blog is somewhere in the middle.  I read several author blogs that not only effectively communicate with a fan audience, but provide a venue for marketing and audience building.  They are often very personal in the sense that everything from what the author ate that day to what bookstore they are signing books at are painstakingly cataloged.  They are also often very ‘professional’ in how they communicate their image to the blog audience.  And when a new book comes out, or a new job is announced, their loyal blog fans are the first to know.

Other:  Other styles range from massively professional, print-quality publications like Gizmodo (that hardly seem to fit inside that tiny word ‘blog’), to painfully unprofessional merchant sites peddling their latest homemade wordpress themes.

So what is Tepring.com?

To further complicate matters, I thought back to the origin of the word ‘blog’, a contraction of the phrase Web Log.  Dictionary.com defines the word ‘log’ as: any of various records, made in rough or finished form, concerning a trip made by a ship or aircraft and dealing with particulars of navigation, weather, engine performance, discipline, and other pertinent details.

In its truest form, a Web Log is a record of an online trip.  A journey, if you will, of exploration into uncharted electronic waters.  THIS definition finally offered me some direction.

Tepring.com is a journey of one who is exploring a new venue for writing.  There will be days where it might look like a diary.  Others where the easy-to-use posting tools will offer an opportunity for the most vain of vanity publishing.  Still other times, when I hope to be able to offer something of value on a topic on which I have some expertise.  Many writers say that keeping a journal of interesting observations or thinking-while-driving revelations is a useful and necessary tool for the writing process.  Tepring.com, in part, will be my venue for that end.

I expect I’ll be travelling alone.  But drop me a note if you happen to tag along for the ride once and a while!