Today’s guest on Being A Blogger is Ishmeet, a 18-year-old lad who is in last year of school. His blog, Dead End, has had whopping 2 lakhs 20 thousand hits when last heard! And still counting more hits… 
Hi Ish, Welcome to Being A Blogger! Let us begin with brief questions about Dead End.
How old is your blog and why did you start blogging in the first place? Did you have any aim in mind?
My blog is one and a half year old. No, I did not have any aim in mind. It was intended to be entirely personal.
How has the blogging journey been for you?
The blogging journey has been good, it has had its share of ups and downs but mostly it’s been a satisfying one.
How did you manage to garner so much traffic to your blog? What do you think is the USP of your blog?
It’s not very hard to garner hits when you know the audience you are targeting at. I don’t work exceptionally hard to get hits. Once in a while, I make a post about current issues, softwares or things about the entertainment industry. That’s what gets me the hits. The other posts are more of a personal kind and are written for myself and the blogger friends that I’ve made in all this time that I’ve been blogging.
I have noticed you do a lot of life blogging (blogging about going ons in life). How comfortable you are sharing your life blogging with your real life friends?
No, not many of my friends know about my blog. Only some of them found out because of my own carelessness. I’m not very comfortable with my real life friends knowing about my blog because I’m a very different person online and offline. Nobody expects me to say certain things that I do on my blog and moreover, it’s an alternative ego that I’d like to keep alternative. If it’s a very good friend, then it’s ok because I’d tell him about my life anyway but if it’s just a random friend, I’d feel like I’m naked if they read my thoughts.
Were there any embarrassing or sad moments during your blogging journey?
Yes, there were quite a lot of them actually. I was really embarrassed when one of my school friends came to know about my blog and told me that he’d been reading it for a long time. There were sad moments too but they were not because of the blog. Life has its depressing and saddening moments and that’s what makes a person write better. My blog is not always happy, it has all my emotions expressed in it.
They say with more power, comes bigger responsibility. Your blog has power of high readership, do you have now have any aim in mind for your blog?
No, I don’t have anything in mind for my blog and I don’t have any particular aim either. I’m not very clear about what is going to happen in my future and hence I cannot make any particular aims for the blog till the time I’m a settled person. Maybe 5 years from now if I’m still blogging, I will have an aim. Till then, I’m writing till the time I can lay my hands on a computer and an internet connection.
Most bloggers face writer’s block. What keeps you motivated to keep on blogging?
I won’t say I haven’t faced writer’s block. That’s natural. You can’t keep on writing forever, ultimately you will run out of things to write about. When I’m facing the writer’s block, I just sit back and think where life is going and then write down what my brain and my heart tells me. When something interesting happens again, the block is over. I don’t believe in overwriting. When I don’t have much to write about, I don’t write and just read other blogs and comment on them.
How do you manage time for you blog alongside your school and tuitions? Any time management tip you may want to share?
It’s not easy and I’m the last person you’d want to ask about a time management tip. I did make a schedule for my blog sometime back but never got to follow it. So basically, if you’re planning to make a schedule, make one that is realistic and one that you can follow. I don’t have a hard and fast rule about what day I’m going to blog. When I find the time or when I feel like I need to write, I might wake up in the middle of the night and blog. Noting down the things you want to blog about on a notebook comes in handy sometimes. You basically have to steal time from your busy schedules and do it.
Ever thought of earning money through blogging?
Yes, one of my friends once suggested that I should put up a contribute button on my blog. But well, I’m still only 17 and don’t even have a credit card. Earning through blogging is still a long time away.
Do you read other blogs? What interests you in other blogs?
Yes, I do read a number of other blogs. There are a number of things that could interest me in a blog. I like blogs which have nice and neatly arranged themes and sidebars. I like blogs which have a different writing style. I like blogs that are informative and to- the- point. And I like personal blogs where people don’t hesitate to express their feelings.
What are the things that may cause you to delete a blog from your reader?
I add a number of blogs to my reader everyday and eventually delete them. It’s because I subscribe to them on the basis of some posts. If the future posts aren’t interesting enough, it’s not logical keeping the blog in the reader. There could be other reasons such as fights or ego issues.
What are your top 5 blogging tools?
I don’t use any blogging tools. I just use the basic WordPress editor. Apart from that, Google Reader is heaven if you’re into subscribing to feed.
Any blogging tips you have that you want to share with newbie bloggers?
Blog what you feel for. Don’t go out there and keep writing just for hits. Quality comes first. And write a good “about me” page so that somebody who reads your blog can know about you.
It is said that blogging is a learning experience. What are your 5 take aways from this journey?
My five take aways. They would be:-
- Looks don’t always matter in life.
- You should know how to be able to express yourself.
- Blogging isn’t only for geeks.
- You can make better friends via blogs than you could in real life.
- Writing about your sadness, sorrow and anger is an effective way of getting rid of it.
Any favorite blogs? (You can not name yours)
Blogs by friends
There are many of them. Alphabetically they would be:
Ashish ‘s Act of War
Cat ‘s blog
Jan ‘s Break the Silence
Lemonade ‘s All Grown up..with Nowhere to Go
Neha ‘s World Thru My Eyes
Poonam ‘s Visceral Observations
Ruhi ‘s Time and Again
Sha ‘s Ramblings of ……Sha
Sulz ‘s Bloggerdygook
Others
I’m also fond of reading Lorelle’s blog and Engtech’s blog.
Thank you, Ish for such a candid interview!
Links elsewhere:
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