This post is part of a series of interviews highlighting Fuelmyblog bloggers and their blogs. If you would like to be interviewed as part of this series simply add your name to the comments on this blog post or drop an email to paul (at) fuelmyblog.com.
· What’s your name?
At FMB, I’m known as kalafudra. Surprisingly, that’s an alias. My real name’s Lena.
· What’s the name of your blog?
I actually have two blogs, Stuff and Bitching About Bad Books. Stuff’s personal – my life, the books I read, the films I see, things I find on the web and so on. Bitching About Bad Books is a blog where I bitch about bad books (SURPRISE!). That means that I take them apart chapter by horrifying chapter and tell everyone, who cares to read it, why I think it’s so horrifying.
· What’s the URL of your blog(s)?
Stuff: http://kalafudra.wordpress.com
Bitching About Bad Books: http://bookbitching.wordpress.com
· How old is your blog?
I’ve been blogging since 2004, but was first at a different blog. Stuff’s 2 years old now. Since October 2007 I’m blogging in English (I’m from Austria and I wrote in German till then). BABB is pretty young, I started it this year in March.
· If you’re willing to share, how many visitors per day do you have to your blog?
Stuff has about 70-100 hits a day, BABB gets about 1 hit a day.
· How much time do you spend blogging every week?
A lot. Some people might even say too much… I’d say about 10 hours a week (max) for both blogs.
· Is it the creative process or the editing process which take you longest when writing a post?
Neither. Usually I decide pretty quickly what I want to blog about, or better, I blog about pretty much everything, and I hardly edit – I write and usually the editing is included in the writing process for me. What takes most time for me is the research, if there’s something to research about and then I spend a lot time answering comments (there’s hardly a comment that goes unanswered on my blogs). And of course the writing itself.
· What inspired you to first start writing a blog?
My friend had a blog, I really liked the idea. And I had just been on a very long trip which I had chronicled by sending out mails to everybody I know. Unfortunately, some of the mails were lost forever and I figured that wouldn’t happen with a blog. So I started my own.
· What do you do to get inspired to write?
For Stuff, I read other blogs, I have regular features (like my reviews of books and movies, my Unusual Wikipedia Monday or my Answering Questions Asked Through Google) and I surf the net, looking for stuff I like, because it’s interesting or weird or really cool or all of that.
For BABB it’s a question of finding the next book I need to bitch about, that usually keeps me occupied for quite a while.
· Is there anything that you simply refuse to blog about?
Not really. If it’s of interest to me or I think about it, I blog about it, hoping that my readers will care about it, too. I even promised a reader of mine an erotic story, which I still didn’t write…
· If you went for a job interview and were told that you’d have to close your blog in order to get the job, how would you react/feel about it?
No way. What kind of weird job would that be that told me what to do with my spare time? Maybe I would have less time for blogging after taking the job, but that shouldn’t be of any concern to anybody else but me.
· Do you talk about your blog with your relatives and friends or do you avoid mentioning it?
My best friends are regular readers of my blog. My family are not so internet-geeky, but I do mention it. I always try to get them to read it, but till now, pretty unsuccessfully.
· What is the biggest mistake you made when starting your blog?
With the first blog host I hade (myblog.de), I didn’t read the terms and conditions carefully enough and didn’t know that they only save a number of entries. Therefore, I lost the first couple of months of my blogging archives… very sad about that.
· Any tips for aspiring bloggers?
Your blog is your blog. It’s your little realm, you make the rules. If you don’t feel comfortable with some comments, it’s your right to delete them. But don’t start censuring. You should be okay with different opinions (if phrased politely), when you put out yours in the internet.
Only write about stuff that interests you.
Only write things you’re comfortable with sharing. You’ll never know who ends up on your blog someday.
Answer your comments and comment on the blogs you’re reading, but only if you have something to say. Never forget to be friendly to the people you interact with.
· What 3 bloggers do you look up to the most?
There’s a few author’s blogs I really like: Neil Gaiman’s (http://journal.neilgaiman.com/), John Green’s [although I never read one of his books] (http://www.sparksflyup.com/), but there isn’t really one blogger I look at in awe.
· Do you still see yourself blogging in 5 years time?
Definitely. I see no reason to stop.
I admire bloggers who reply to all comments all the time. I go in spurts still though I am better than I used to be. Blogging itself takes so much time that with that and my other writing, replying gets a low priority rating sometimes.
…… tell me more about the ‘erotic’ story ….. I’m just asking for a friend you understand …..
Oh, DP, you will just have to tell your friend to visit my blog. It will come up sooner or later…
Thanks for your comment on my doodle. I’m very much the amateur at the moment but it’s great fun! I like your interviews – that’s a great idea. I try to reply to all my commenters (not that I have hundreds or anything, haha!) but sometimes it’s hard because I have to find time to read the 200+ blogs that I currently love to read, and that number is growing all the time!
[...] Kalafudra from Stuff and here. Click here for the interview. [...]