Hello all,
I am coming to a bit of a cross-roads in my blog. I feel that the direction I want to take this blog in is actually going to alienate some of my readers. Now my blog is a bit more established, I want to begin delving properly into the Gothic subculture and into the arts where the subject matter is darker and in keeping with the subculture. I'd like to interview more creative types, including musicians and artists currently active, I'd like to showcase more bands, write more opinion pieces, write about art history, write about books I've read, carry on photographing buildings, display more of my own art-work, etc. and generally move away from shallower things such as outfit posts, make-up tutorials, decor posts, etc.
I'd also like to finally start posting more recipes and more crafting tutorials; I know it's not exactly high culture, but this blog is for things I enjoy and I enjoy cooking and making things, and it is called "Domesticated" after all, but I haven't been living up to that so far! I don't see the point in posting about my clothes unless it will somehow be helpful to others, and there are plenty of extant blogs discussing Goth fashion and similar subcultural styles, and do so better than I could. There isn't much I can add in terms of blogging a style column, but I can post about how I have made and modified things, as hopefully this will help others with their own projects. Goth is not about what clothes you can afford to buy, it is a subculture and artistic movement - not a fashion trend. Goth is about your own creativity, and I'm not displaying mine.
That said, it is generally my fashion related posts that get the biggest positive response. Personally, I would rather write about what I actually enjoy (music, art, photography) than simply cater to what is popular, but I also do not want to disappoint people who have come to enjoy this blog as it is over the past few months. I know that if I consistently write about stuff that interests me, that with time I will attract followers with shared interests, but I don't see followers as a replaceable commodity or measure of achievement to be gained, I think of them as actual people whom I am communicating with.
Hopefully my blog will improve, whatever direction I go in. Maybe I'll reach compromise; maybe I can retain some of the style elements and still have plenty of time to write of other things.
Please, please, write in the comments about how you feel about such changes, about what you enjoy reading. I do heed my comments and respond to as many as I can.
~HouseCat
I know what you mean. My blog is all over the place content wise, been a qualified chef and horticulturist I should blog more recipes and gardening things, but I just post pics of cemeteries. I love your blog anyway.
ReplyDeleteI went to night school to do RHS certificates level 1 & 2 and yet never get time to spend in my own garden. Raven ends up doing more gardening than I do (and insists he kills everything he tries to grow, despite a very green pile of evidence to the contrary...) And I spend more time helping with landscaping, invasive species limitation and other outdoorsy, plantsy stuff for various environmental groups than I do sorting out my own garden O.o
DeleteMy recipes start off as making it up as I go along or out of a recipe book and then get refined to how I like them. I failed home economics at school so I'm not sure how reliable a source I am, but people seem to enjoy what I cook/bake/make. Maybe my cooking is actually awful, I've just got used to it, and everyone else is humouring me.
I also just end up posting pictures of cemeteries... and churches, and pretty non-religious buildings, and anything else that stays still long enough for me to point a camera at it.
I feel that it's your blog and you need to do with it whatever you find appropriate. Changing the blog's content somewhat certainly won't offend me, but as always, either I'm interested in the subject matter or I'm not. Articles on bands, music, art history and opinion sound interesting to me. I'm looking forward to reading them.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to limit myself to 2 fashion posts per month, and then try and have something music related each Monday, and something art history related every Thursday and something photography related on Fridays. This will a) encourage me to do the sorts of blogs where I have to double-check my facts and find pictures that are public domain (checking the latter can be time consuming) as this sort of blogging requires more effort and therefore can fall by the wayside slightly.
DeleteIf I do a weekly band showcase, I should also spread a bit of information about Goth-ish (not just Goth, but Coldwave, Deathrock, Darkwave, etc.) bands that are slightly less known about. I'd like to think all Goths know about Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure etc. - the stuff that gets played at pretty much every Goth club night on the planet. More than those bands made that sort of music, and while some of them were mostly imitative and not so good, others are quite enjoyable. I'm also thinking of every now and again finding songs that are not Goth in genre, but might be Goth-friendly, e.g all the various versions of "Paint it Black" or maybe things like "Cemeteries of London" by Coldplay - it's got arches, witches, ghosts and God talking in his garden... I'm sure that's got to be Gothic even if it isn't Goth.
Yeah, it can be kind of tricky to write by what's popular... the comedy posts over at http://emporiumgothica.blogspot.com are what seemed to get the best hits and responses, yet it's hard to come up with that every day. Still, if you don't blog what you like then you tend to neglect the blog and soon it dies off.
ReplyDeleteOutfit posts are easy for me to do, in one respect. It's just writing about my clothes. The effort is when Raven and I collaborate on illustrating them. He photographs, I style and model. Raven does the hard bit! Personally, it feels a little narcissistic of me, and anyway, there's a lot more I like about Goth than just clothes, and I miss talking about buildings and paintings and all the things that drew me into the subculture.
DeleteYou should be true to who you are and write as you see fit, and I'm sorry if i upset people but have learned from experience people either take you as you are or not at all. Go for it girl. PS gives you an excuse to get out with that fancy toy of yours and get used to carrying it around.
ReplyDeleteWell, posting about fashion wouldn't be false - all the outfits I write about are ones I've actually worn, and that is a facet of who I am, it's just it isn't all I am, and I think that some of the other facets are more interesting. There are also a lot of extant fashion blogs, and I don't want to be repeating what others are doing already.
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