True Life Seek survey
So, broomhead from True Life Seek posted this survey for other bloggers to answer…
I figured I’d give it a try. Maybe it will help me out, because I feel like I might be partly in the same situation as he is.
Goals:
* Why do you blog?
Really, I’m not quite sure how to answer this one. I don’t know, actually. It’s not like I get a lot of readers, and sometimes I feel that no one reads posts that I write, so why bother? It’s not like I add really new opinions to things.
I started blogging last May (oh sweet, almost a year! I should celebrate on the actual anniversary.) after I found International Wota. I had never blogged before…well, not in this sense. I had a journal on gaiaonline.com, but I don’t consider it to actually be a blog. I did have some Hello! Project posts, like one I made right when Kago Ai was originally suspended, but it was mostly personal crap. (It’s here if anyone cares, I dunno if you can see it without having an account but if you can, PLEASE keep in mind that this was like 2004/2005/2006 and I was an uber n00b back then, especially with the early entries. xD) I also had a LJ, but again, it was more personal stuff. But somewhere in April 2007 I was looking for the lyrics to Kanashimi Twilight by Morning Musume and found HNPH. From there I found International Wota, and after lurking there for a while I decided I wanted to blog. It was partly because I liked the community, and partly I think because I wanted attention. xD;;;; Also, I don’t have any real life friends that like Japanese music, and I really wanted to be able to tell my thoughts to SOMEONE.
* What long-term goals do you hope to accomplish, if any at all?
Long term goals? I don’t really have any. I’d really like to become someone that lots of people know, like some of the more prominent bloggers in the International Wota community. Obviously that’s not happening any time soon, I’m not active enough to even think of considering myself to be one of those people. I want to get to the point where I have regular readers.
* Where does your blog fail to meet your goals?
Well, I guess I already kinda said that. I don’t post enough. I’m not active enough, and I know it. It’s not that I’m busy. I totally could pull the schoolwork excuse, cause it IS getting dangerously close to the end of the school year, which means projects and papers and exams, but that’s not the issue. It’s not that I don’t have enough time. I spend tons of time on websites like gaia, time that I could use to blog. Somehow I feel like I’ve lost some enthusiasm for blogging, and I’d like to try to get that back, but it’s just not happening right now…
* If you do have goals, what will accomplishing them do for yourself?
To be honest, not much. Becoming a popular blogger in the International Wota community won’t really do anything, I’ll just be really happy and I’ll get that nice “people like me!” feeling. xD
* What do you want to gain out of blogging? A creative outlet? Praise from others? Personal satisfaction? Money?
I’m not exactly sure what a creative outlet IS, like I know the term but I’m not sure exactly how it’s defined…but I THINK that’s the term I want to use here. Blogging is a good place to just write, and put stuff here that I know my friends don’t care about. I don’t have any real life friends that like j-pop, especially Hello! Project, so it’s not like I can talk with them about something like, say, Kago Ai getting kicked out of H!P. Or anything like that, really.
Praise from others…well, it’s kinda part of it. Would I keep this blog going if I didn’t have any readers? Definitely not. International Wota definitely encourages me to blog. Whenever I make a Hello! Project post, I always look forward to what whoever covers it says on IW about it. I know there’s not a guarantee that posts are always going to end up there, and there’s definitely been some controversy about that, but when a post -does- end up getting covered, it makes me really happy. ^^
Money? If there’s a way to earn money by blogging, please tell me. =P (Actually wait, bloggerparty does that, right? If it’s a site like that, never mind. xD)
* Do you feel that your blog should meet a requirement for amount of entries? Do you feel any particular entry should be a certain length?
Not really. I don’t ever feel like “oh! I should make three posts a week.” or anything like that. Sometimes, though, I start feeling bad because I haven’t posted anything in FOREVER…like now. D:
* For any particular entry, what motivates you to start and finish blog posts?
It depends. A lot of my posts are about Hello! Project news, or new PVs. Those are just done when I get the news, usually. Also, a lot of my posts are about Prince of Tennis music news. Again, that’s just done as soon as the news comes out. Other than that? I think a lot of it is just me getting a random idea and wanting to post about it. The problem is, I always get those ideas during the school day! If I have no access to a computer, I start kinda writing it in my mind. As soon as I can get on a computer, I start writing, but sometimes I have to stop in the middle. When I go back to it after, I look at it and somehow I either don’t have the inspiration or I can’t write in the same way, so it’s hard to finish. It’s a huge problem! For random posts that aren’t about news, if I can’t get them done in one sitting I usually can’t get them done at all.
* Do you actively consider long term goals for each individual post?
Nope.
Subject Material:
* What do you blog about?
Hello! Project, and Prince of Tennis music news. I try to keep it to stuff relevant to either of those, or at least j-pop/anime. For Prince of Tennis music news, I check the music official site all the time and whenever there’s a new news post about a PoT character CD, I just translate the info and post it here. For Hello! Project, it’s just kinda whatever. xD News, my opinions on current H!P news, stuff like that.
I’ve been thinking about whether I should start incorporating H!P news into my blog, like I do with Prince of Tennis- I already cover big news, but I mean CD info and stuff. I feel like I could be way more active if I did a lot of that. However, it’s totally not as easy, cause there isn’t ONE specific source for all H!P CD news, and I don’t want to just copy my news items from a blog like Some Boys! Blog. Plus, there are already quite a few blogs out there that do that…
* Would you be keep a blog even if it wasn’t about the subjects you tend to cover?
Not exactly sure what this means. It depends, really. I don’t think I could write a blog about a fandom I’m not really familiar with, and H!P and PoT are the two fandoms that I really am familiar with.
* Do you write about the material to promote it to others?
Well…not really. I think a lot of the stuff I write about is stuff you have to be a fan to really get. For example, I don’t expect to turn anyone into a PoT fan just because of my posts about the CDs. (Although that’d be cool.)
Readership:
* How much do you care about readership?
I really love when people read my blog. I wouldn’t ever pull anything like “if I don’t get x amount of comments, I won’t update” (which I’ve actually seen! Not on the j-pop blogosphere, but…) but I do like comments. I definitely wouldn’t be blogging if I never got any readers.
* Does it satisfy you to know people are reading, even if they don’t comment?
Totally! One reason why I like WordPress better than Blogger. I don’t think you could see page views on Blogger, I didn’t think I was getting any readers because no one commented. But I actually am getting people that read my blog!
* What effect does receiving a comment have on you?
I love getting comments. I especially feel really happy when a Prince of Tennis fan comments on my PoT posts! I don’t hang out on PoT fan sites or anything so I don’t know how they find my blog- which is why I love it, because it means they came across it on like a google search or something and found it interesting enough to read and comment.
To me, it doesn’t mean as much when I get views from people finding my blogs through google, because a lot of times people find my blogs with search terms such as “eiji oishi doujinshi” or “morning musume download”, and when people are looking for those, I know they just click the back button as soon as they see that I don’t actually have any of that. I mean, I get people finding my blog with terms like “powerpuff girls movie” and “manga sex”…o_o So comments from people finding my blog through google show that they actually read my blog and cared.
* Do you write with a particular audience in mind or an unspecified general audience? Why?
Well, really it depends. For all my Hello! Project stuff, I typically have a particular audience in mind- the International Wota community. For PoT news, I really don’t even have regular readers that check for those. I don’t even expect people to ever read those most of the time. Anything else, like random thoughts, is just kinda for whoever happens to read it, whether it’s a j-pop fan that checks my blog once in a while or someone who finds it through a site like google.
* If you write for a particular audience, is it International Wota? If yes, why?
Yeah, for my H!P stuff. It’s basically because I think mostly everyone who reads those posts actually come from IW. xD
Community: (The International Wota section)
* If International Wota didn’t exist, would you blog?
I wouldn’t have ever started my blog. However, if all of a sudden IW just DISAPPEARED or something (xD Hopefully that never happens!) I’d keep blogging, because I know at least I’d keep up with the rest of the community.
* When IW covers an entry of yours, are you encouraged to blog more or less?
I guess it motivates me a bit more. Reassurance that people care, maybe? xD Also, when I’m linked to from IW, I get a lot of hits, and lots of hits kinda motivate me. xD
* When IW does not cover an entry, are you encouraged to blog more or less?
To be honest, I kinda have an idea of what IW will cover and what they won’t. Probably because since I’m a contributor (though not a very active one…) I know all the rules as to what gets covered. (Although, you know I’m really starting to wonder with some stuff. xD A couple of Tenimyu posts have been covered lately!) There’s obviously some stuff that falls into that category but doesn’t get covered, because not everything will be- all contributors have other stuff to do, so they can’t do EVERYTHINg. Obviously I don’t expect any of my PoT stuff to be posted, unless it relates a lot to j-pop too (I actually didn’t really expect the Munasawagi Scarlet tennis cover post to get covered, I figured even though it’s a Berryz cover, it was really just me going “ZOMg TENNIS POT YAY” so it wouldn’t get covered. xD). For Hello! Project stuff, I admit that for a few days after I post it I check IW way too often. xD Refresh the main page, the to-do list, the scheduled posts…
If it doesn’t get posted, I know it’s no big deal. As a contributor myself, I know not everything can be covered. If it’s something I really thought was good, I might get kinda disappointed, but usually it’s fine.
* How often do you read other blogs?
Ooh, depends. I check Some Boys! Blog at least once a day for news and stuff. Unless I’m really busy (or just really lazy) I have a feed reader that shows me when blogs have new posts, so I just read the new posts through there. To be honest, I don’t know what a lot of blogs look like, since I just use the feed reader…xD
* How often do you comment on other blogs?
Not too often, unless I really have something to say. I commented on an IW post instead of the actual post recently, it was one of Vee’s PoT posts that got covered on IW. xD Thinking back, I should have posted it on the actual post…
* If another blog covers a topic that you wanted or wished to cover, do you still blog about that specific topic? Why or why not?
Yeah! I mean, if everyone said “oh, he/she posted about Resonant Blue, I shouldn’t”, it’d be boring and we’d only have one opinion. I mean, I usually don’t have radically different opinions that no one else has, and I find that sometimes I just kinda repeat what others have said already, but I still like putting it in my own words and having my opinion on my blog.
Commitment:
* How serious is your attitude towards blogging? Do you consider it just as something to do for fun?
I do it for fun. If I was really serious about it and I tried to blog a ton, I’d start considering it just a job and then it wouldn’t be at all fun anymore.
* How often do you blog? How often would you like to blog?
Lately, not too often. I really want to blog more. I want to make this more active, not so much that it’s not fun anymore but still, I haven’t posted anything good in a while.
* What priorities do you or have you put aside in order to blog? Why?
If I have a really good idea for a post in the evening/at night, I’ll do it instead of homework. xD Because it’s more fun!
Well, really, when I get a good idea, I’d like to just type it up right then and put everything else aside. Sadly, it’s not always possible (I hate getting an idea in the middle of the school day!) but if I can put something aside and blog instead I probably will. xD
* Do you see yourself blogging in 6 months? Why or why not
Hmm. 6 months. …November, right? Yeah. I mean, it’ll probably be like this. Not very active, but still there.
Personal:
* Would you say you blog for yourself?
Yeah. Especially with the PoT stuff. Not many people read that, I’m not sure why I do it. xD
* What is your feeling after posting an entry? Is it relative to the time and effort you put in an entry?
When I post an entry that I really think is good, it feels great to actually post it. I definitely feel accomplished. xD
* What needs does blogging fulfill?
Uh, needs? I guess the need to tell someone my opinion of something. xD When my friends don’t care, I need to put it -somewhere-.
* Do you consider yourself a writer?
Yeah. I write lots of fanfics in my spare time too.
* Do you consider yourself good at writing? Good at blogging?
Not really. xD;; When it comes to my fanfics, I don’t share them with other people. Those are totally just for me. xD I don’t think they’re good enough to share with people. When it comes to blogging, I think being a good writer is important, but it’s also important to get your opinions across. As long as I can do that, even though I don’t consider myself a good writer, I’m fine.
* How much of your personal life do you share on your blog? If none, why do you leave this out?
Oh, I really try to keep it out. Unless it directly relates to something I usually talk about. I just think that people reading my blog don’t care as much.
But I’m really bad at keeping that stuff out. xD;;;
May 20, 2008 at 2:59 pm
[...] Blogger Survey (Shanimuni Paradise) True Life Seek survey (Resonant Blue) In The Immortal Words Of Richard Dawson… (CK’s H!P Blog) TLS blogging [...]