I went to the movies today to see Julie & Julia, the story of Julie Powell, who blogs about her year-long quest to cook all of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I read this book when it came out and had been looking forward to this movie all summer. The book was originally the blog that Julie wrote as she was cooking the recipes.
I loved Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Julia Child and got extremely hungry watching the food scenes (except for the aspic, which was kind of disgusting.) I also found myself getting caught up in Julie’s blogging quest. Here’s the 5 things I learned about blogging from this movie:
1. If you’re going to blog, choose a topic that you’re passionate about. Both women were totally caught up in the quests – Julie to cook her way through the cookbook, and Julia to learn how to cook and then write the cookbook.
2. Write on a regular basis. You’ll keep your readers happy if they know when to expect your updates.
3. Be yourself, warts and all. Julie swears a lot and lets readers in on what’s going on in her life. That’s as compelling as the food she’s cooking. You have a lot of competition out there for a reader’s attention. Safe and bland will not cut it.
4. Have a structure for your blog. Julie Powell didn’t plan to turn her blog into a book, but maybe you should consider writing it that way. Organize your blog in categories that can become chapters, and have an overall outline of what you’ll write about. (This will also help to counter those “Now what will I write about?” moments.
5. Set goals for your blog. Give yourself reasons to keep writing.
6. Everything tastes better with butter. (But you already knew that.) Bon appetit!
