Blogging - Robyn Bradley

I’m an old-school blog reader, meaning I subscribe to blogs via email (I’ve never taken to RSS readers, although if I had an iPad, methinks my blog-reading methods would change).

Note to bloggers: add email subscriptions to your blogs. There are blogs I’d love to read regularly and that I promise myself I will, but I always end up forgetting. This wouldn’t happen if you added email subscriptions to your blog.

Blogs I Read Religiously (Listed In No Particular Order)

Seth Godin. Shrink, mentor, coach, inspiration all rolled into one.

Post Secret. The one and only blog that I remember to GO TO since I can’t subscribe via email. Updated every Sunday. Probably my #1 favorite blog.

Young House Love. So, I live in an apartment, don’t think I’ll ever own, and am pretty sure I’ll never be a DIY-er anyway. But I adore this blog and love peeking in on Sherry, John, Clara, and Burger.

Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent. Smart, kind, and provides great info.

Betsy Lerner, Literary Agent. Honest. Hysterical. Did I mention honest? Brutally so.

Jessica Gottlieb, A Los Angeles Mom. Mom bloggers rule! I think she’s a stand-out blogger, and I like following her and reading the comments (this is how I get some mom knowledge for my novels…by listening to what real moms are talking about).

BookEnds Literary Agency – Another smart literary agency

Joe Konrath’s Blog — another one I can’t subscribe to via email, but I check daily to see if he has anything up

Copyblogger – Not just about copywriting topics, which is cool

HubSpot…depending on the topic, I might read it right away, but they also post around five times a day, which is a lot.

All Facebook – roundup of articles; this is how I keep up with all things FB

All Twitter – roundup of articles; this is how I keep up with all things Twitter

eBook Newser – roundup of articles; this is how I keep up with eBook news

Galley Cat – roundup of articles; this, and the four directly above come in at the same time, every afternoon (M-F) around 4:00 p.m.

Amazon Blogs, Omnivoracious Daily Digest

Media Bistro Morning News – article roundup

Mashable – Roundup

Digital Reader – All things digital and techie…lots of late-breaking news and theories

A Word a Day – gotta boost the vocab and help my chances in Scrabble with words like “cwm”

Susan Weiner’s Investment Writing Blog — a friend’s blog, and lots of good writing advice

Bob Mayer’s Blog – traditional and self-pubbed writer

Love as a Found Object – from the immensely talented author Leah Hager Cohen, who was my thesis advisor when I went for my MFA at Lesley University

The Shatzkin Files – always long, but always smart, insightful posts

I subscribe to plenty of other blogs, like Gizmodo, but those are hit and miss — it depends on what the subject is. And there are bloggers, like Nathan Bransford, who are on hiatus, but I usually read his stuff same day (ditto with some writer friends’ blogs — I read their stuff when it comes in, but they’re not in the daily or even weekly blogging category). Also, some blogs — like Google’s Webmaster Central Blog — are always same-day reads, even though the posts don’t come in on a regular schedule. So I read them when (and if) they come in.

What blogs do your read regularly? Share in the comments.

Anyone who runs a blog knows about comment spam. The sheer amount I get would catapult this blog into the OMG Best. Blog. Ever. category, if that were the parameters that determined popularity.

I actually don’t understand how spam works. I mean, is it all automated, or is some of it manually posted by real human beings? And if the latter, I’ll say this: I promise never to complain about my life again, because if someone is forced to write things like “Barabara [sic] Bush has always been fairly liberal, so too her twin sister and the mother. Georgie must feel really isolated in that house!” in my post on how to make the most out of your Facebook page, well, suddenly even the most mundane part of my life doesn’t seem so bad.

That said, I do have a FAVORITE spam comment of all time that shows up in various forms on a weekly basis, and I bet anyone who runs a blog has gotten one of said forms. It goes like this: Blah boink what is this Poop heh.

Seriously, say that line out loud. In different accents. Like the guy from the Chinese food take out place or like Gretchen, the German housekeeper from the TV show Benson (gawd, I’m dating myself here…not sure why THAT just popped into my head). But, seriously. Say it out loud right now. It’s honestly the best. Line. Ever.

Sometimes the spammer will revise it (hey, writing is all about rewriting, so props to said spammer) to this: Blah what what is this Poop hah.

Or this: Blah what what is this Poop wut.

But my favorite is still the first version, probably because it has the word boink in it, which is another great word that I don’t use often enough in daily conversation. But now, omg, NOW. When I get mad or I’m hyper or I want to torture the cat or a copywriting client sends me edits I disagree with, I march around my studio apartment saying the line out loud: Blah boink what is this Poop heh.

And it feels so freakin’ good.

I want to be cremated and scattered after I leave this world, but if I were to be buried, I’d want that line on my tombstone. Seems fitting, don’t ya think?

Bloggers, do you have any favorite spam comments? Or am I just weird? I’m not weird, right?

RIGHT?