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The secrets of successful blogging revealed!

Dammit.

I realize that this has been floating around the blogosphere for a couple of days, but when I first saw it at PZ’s place, I thought that Chis Clarke had stolen someone’s blogging strategy notebook, except that I thought he had stolen mine, so spot-on is his channeling of just the right style to take on pseudoscience mavens, quacks, and other purveyors of woo.

There’s just one problem. It’s way, way too short to have been stolen from my blogging playbook. It needs to be about two or three times as long, minimum. It also needs a few sentences like this:

This sentence contains tortured variations on the term “burning stupid” involving everything from supernovas to black holes to quantum theory.

This sentence rambles on and on and on until you desperately want to put it out of your misery. This sentence is followed by a fragment.

Who says I don’t know my own blogging style? It is true, though that my readers could probably characterize it better…or not.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

11 replies on “The secrets of successful blogging revealed!”

I thought it was pretty funny that in your last post on Mike Adams, you post title had six more characters than would be allowed in an actual complete tweet.

But then, I’m easily amused.

You forgot to include the sentence that forgets how it started is missing. 😉

There should also several sentences talking about zombies or referencing sci-fi characters.

(OT)-Woo Alert (Level Violet)- It has been revealed to me that Mercola has overtaken Dr.R! This Hand Maiden of Illuminati/Masons/et al, is not at all pleased.

You forgot the unneccesary but amusing preamble paragraph comparing the latest corrupt idiot to the last three corrupt idiots you’ve incinerated (with links).

It’s well worth reading some of the comments on Chris Clarke’s blog. Some are as funny as Chris’ original article.

@Daniel J. Andrews

And the meme it inspired on PZ’s. I think comments on Scienceblogs are more frequently meta as a result.

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