I was visiting LifeHacker yesterday, because every time I do I learn about eleventy-three different useful things, and I followed a link to this guy, who shares some helpful suggestions on how not to have a shitty blog. Most of his advice is sound, so I thought I’d post it here, along with my self-assessment of my own blogging tendencies.

how to blog by tony pierce, 110

1. write every day. Done and done.

2. if you think youre a good writer, write twice a day. Um … I’d like to think I’m an adequate writer, so I write 1.5 times a day.

3. dont be afraid to do anything. infact if youre afraid of something, do it. then do it again. and again. I’m afraid of failure, but that doesn’t keep me from doing it again and again.

4. cuss like a sailor. I do a cock-shittingly good job of fucking the shit out of this assfuck bitch-hole of an item.

5. dont tell your mom, your work, your friends, the people you want to date, or the people you want to work for about your blog. if they find out and you’d rather they didnt read it, ask them nicely to grant you your privacy. I violate this one often, proudly, and without remorse. I generally share my URL with anyone who asks, in an attempt to chase that elusive two-headed dragon of “visibility.”� (I’m not sure it really has two heads. But two heads are more badass on a dragon than just one.) As a rule, I try to assume that anyone could be reading my blog at any time, and plan my content accordingly. I always find it humorous when people go all shithouse upon discovering that someone they didn’t want to read their blog is in fact reading their blog, as if a public, unencrypted online presence weren’t exactly that. High visibility is a double-edged, two-headed sword of destiny.

6. have comments. dont be upset if no one writes in your comments for a long time. eventually they’ll write in there. if people start acting mean in your comments, ask them to stop, they probably will. True. In fact, having comments is a great way to develop thicker skin, like when some anonymous jackasses post replies to something you wrote eighteen months ago.

7. have an email address clearly displayed on your blog. sometimes people want to tell you that you rock in private. Maybe I don’t display my email address often enough. Maybe if I did, I’d get email from more people besides my two closest friends, Online Mortgage Calculators and Texas Holdem.

8. dont worry very much about the design of your blog. image is a fakeout. That shouldn’t be a problem, since I possess the design acumen of a housecat.

9. use Blogger. it’s easy, it’s free; and because they are owned by Google, your blog will get spidered better, you will show up in more search results, and more people will end up at your blog. besides, all the other blogging software & alternatives pretty much suck. Too late. I’m beholden to the fickle whore that is WordPress.

10. use spellcheck unless youre completely totally keeping it real. but even then you might want to use it if you think you wrote something really good. Because I’m such an asshole about calling other people out on their grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes, I tend to be extremely, almost psychotically conscientious about proofreading everything I post. In general, I think most bloggers could stand to be more vigilant about those things. Though I find it deliciously ironic that this advice is given amidst a list of items that are, for the most part, uncapitalized and unpunctuated. Writing in all-lowercase is so 1997.

11. say exactly what you want to say no matter what it looks like on the screen. then say something else. then keep going. and when youre done, re-read it, and edit it and hit publish and forget about it. I’m not sure exactly what this means. Maybe it’s a zen thing, like how many babies can you fit in a tire?

12. link like crazy. link anyone who links you, link your favorites, link your friends. dont be a prude. linking is what seperates bloggers from apes. and especially link if you’re trying to prove a point and someone else said it first. it lends credibility even if youre full of shit. I try to link often without being obnoxious about it. For example, I got this list of suggestions from this blog, which I found via LifeHacker.

13. if you havent written about sex, religion, and politics in a week youre probably playing it too safe, which means you probably fucked up on #5, in which case start a second blog and keep your big mouth shut about it this time. I have written about all three at various points on this blog, though not recently. Perhaps I should now: “Penis church Republican.”

14. remember: nobody cares which N*Sync member you are, what State you are, which Party of Five kid you are, or which Weezer song you are. the second you put one of those things on your blog you need to delete your blog and try out for the marching band. similarilly, nobody gives a shit what the weather is like in your town, nobody wants you to change their cursor into a butterfly, nobody wants to vote on whether your blog is hot or not, and nobody gives a rat ass what song youre listening to. write something Real for you, about you, every day. This one made me laugh. I don’t think I’m guilty of any of these offenses except Which Song I’m Listening To. I enjoy posting mp3s and sharing my favorite music with people, and I balance that out pretty well with actual content. But he’s right, that other shit is bullshit.

15. dont be afraid if you think something has been said before. it has. and better. big whoop. say it anyway using your own words as honestly as you can. just let it out. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Shakespeare beat us all to it four hundred years ago.

16. get Site Meter and make it available for everyone to see. if you’re embarrassed that not a lot of people are clicking over to your page, dont be embarrassed by the number, be embarrassed that you actually give a crap about hits to your gay blog. it really is just a blog. and hits really dont mean anything. you want Site Meter, though, to see who is linking you so you can thank them and so you can link them back. similarilly, use Technorati, but dont obsess. write. Done and done.

17. people like pictures. use them. save them to your own server. or use Blogger’s free service. if you dont know how to do it, learn. also get a Buzznet account. several things will happen once you start blogging, one of them is you will learn new things. thats a good thing. No one can accuse me of not posting enough pictures, though my brother does it much better. Also, I have a gallery. I suspect most people just visit my blog for the hot pictures of my hot girlfriend.

18. before you hit Save as Draft or Publish Post, select all and copy your masterpiece. you are using a computer and the internet, shit can happen. no need to lose a good post. I have learned this one the hard way, as I suspect everyone has.

19. push the envelope in what youre writing about and how youre saying it. be more and more honest. get to the root of things. start at the root of things and get deeper. dig. think out loud. keep typing. keep going. eventually you’ll find a little treasure chest. every time you blog this can happen if you let it. Move over, Natalie Goldberg and Anne Lamott! There’s a new evocative, pastel-hued writing coach in town!

20. change your style. mimic people. write beautiful lies. dream in public. kiss and tell. finger and tell. cry scream fight sing fuck and dont be afraid to be funny. the easiest thing to do is whine when you write. dont be lazy. audblog at least once a week. I’ve never been particularly interested in Audblogging. Maybe the next time Dino’s wasted I’ll record what he’s saying and post it, since I think we could all learn something from that.

21. write open letters. make lists. call people out on their bullshit. lead by example. invent and reinvent yourself. start by writing about what happened to you today. for example today i told a hot girl how wonderfully hot she is. I’m pretty sure I’ve done all of those things several times over. I will continue to fight the good fight.

22. when in doubt review something. theres not enough reviews on blogs. review a movie you just saw, a tv show, a cd, a kiss you just got, a restaurant, a hike you just took, anything. Done, done, done, done, and done.

23. constantly write about the town that you live in. I would, if it weren’t such a small, shitty, boring shit-town with nothing to do. I swear, as soon as I graduate and get a car I am so out of this place.

24. out yourself. tell your secrets. you can always delete them later. Point taken. I am hereby coming out of the closet as a professed, proud, and practicing heterosexual.

25. dont use your real name. dont write about your work unless you dont care about getting fired. Yeah. See, I learned this the hard way when I used my previous blog to discuss in detail the myriad curiosities and frustrations I encountered at my previous job with a well-known retailer. I didn’t get fired, just reprimanded. Maybe someday I’ll tell you that story. As for using my real name, I guess it’s too late for that. But it keeps me honest.

26. dont be afraid to come across as an asswipe. own your asswipeness. I wipe my ass thoroughly and often. Just ask my roommate; we go through a lot of toilet paper.

27. nobody likes poems. dont put your poems on your blog. not even if theyre incredible. especially if theyre incredible. odds are theyre not incredible. bad poems are funny sometimes though, so fine, put your dumb poems on there. whatever. I guess I’m guilty on this count. I’ve kept it to a minimum, however. God forbid an oft-maligned genre should earn anyone’s respect anytime soon.

28. tell us about your friends. That’s all I do.

29. dont apologize about not blogging. nobody cares. just start blogging again. I’ve never apologized for not blogging, mostly because I can’t seem to go very long without posting. The only person who should apologize for not blogging is obviously Ransom “November 7, 2004″ Briggs.

30. read tons of blogs and leave nice comments. I will if you will.