In “You Can’t Write My Blog Post”, Liz Strauss has done it again. She makes a brilliant point:
Writing a blog works the same. You can’t write my blog post. I can’t write yours either. What I can do is pay attention to how you do things and find my own version of doing them that makes sense for me.
So much of the blogosphere is about copying. Copying what others write. Copying how others work. Copying others writing. There are some days when I begin to doubt there’s an original thought or thinker left. Don’t you?
That’s what makes finding a unique voice on the web so exciting. It’s a diamond in the coal.
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network
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7 Comments
Nice post! I think that finding the ‘right’ voice, and staying in touch with it, makes writing a blog post twice as easy and twice more fun.
Anytime I lik to an interesting newsy type of story I make sure to write something about it that’s different than the link I’m giving. I see so many blogs on the same topics that simply cut and paste the same information.
As I have said in my posts before, it’s about finding your own voice, something that says it’s you. That will be your signature piece, the thing that people can imitate, but never copy. The thing that people will know you for and echo throughout the blogosphere.
Anytime I use another person’s posts etc as inspiration, I usually site them, link to them, write a brief overview and then offer my own take on the subject or tell readers why I think it is a good/bad/interesting/etc topic. Seeing other blogs copy items or simply repeat them is definitely tired.
Great post!!
-baiguai
All art is about copying, but making it yours. Shakespeare, one of the ultimate artists, never made up a story – he took existing tales and weaved them into his magnificent plays.
interesting point…
but it is true it is difficult to find something original these days..
lets take a different perspective and consider this analogy…
a coup de etat is primarily sedition and is thus.. illegal.. it only becomes legal if it is successful…
copying then is of course.. not right, what probably makes it right is when you take a little bit of this, and that, and something else to make it something of your own… then you are successful..
however if your piece of work retains remnants or indicators of sources that had been copied, then you fall flat and are an obvious copycat
i stand accused of copying a ‘unique voice’ myself and what i think is that this person isn’t actually original in what she does or says; but, is doing what many many people do and has been actually been widely recognized probably more due to networking skills, persistence and a desire to be widely recognized, if you ask me. that is what this person really seems to be uniquely talented in. social engineering.
and some people very obviously ‘steal’ ideas and get away with it because of their social standing or clout. is it okay then? is it not stealing then? when the person you are stealing from is not well-known.
we all have our own audience as bloggers and we can interpret culture, or whatever, to them thru OUR lens. and nobody is exactly like anyone else anyway… even if they TRY to be.
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