Blog Duel Rules

My friend Carrie and I had been having trouble with our blogs. As much as we loved writing and felt like we had lots we wanted to say; we found ourselves not updating our blogs on a regular basis. Prioritisation meant that things that seemed more important kept pushing updating further and further down our list of things to do. So one sunny January afternoon I came up with an idea. A way to motivate ourselves into updating at least once a week and thus the blog duel was born!


The Rules:

1. A week runs from Friday to Friday. Participants must update their blogs at least once by Friday 12 midnight GMT+8 each week.
2. Participating blogs must have commenting enabled. This encourages feedback and promotes a community feel amongst the blogs.
3. All participating blogs must have links to everyone else’s blog on their main page.
4. Failure to meet the deadline will result in blogger requiring to post a minimum of two times the next week, if they miss that it goes up to three and so on. Once the penance has been paid it goes back to one per week.
5. One person can have up to three eligible blogs. They can post to any one (doesn't have to be all) and only one of the blogs has to show the links. All blogs need to have commenting enabled. For example Carrie has two blogs !RainbowBlogStar! and Get Served, she can post to either blog for the duel but only has to have the links up on !RainbowBlogStar!. Get Served isn't really an appropriate blog to have links to unrelated personal blogs, but it is still useful for it to be part of the duel so she is motivated to update.

Hints and Tricks:

• If you find yourself having lots of things to write about one week and not so much the next week try scheduling your posts. Write a few one week and schedule one or two of them to not be posted till the week after! Great for if you know you have a busy week coming up.
• Carrie and I have both been guilty of the cop out post. Sometimes time flies and before you know it, it’s Friday night. There is nothing wrong with writing a cop out “sorry I don’t have time to write anything better” type of post. Too many of these however may result in being booted from the duel.
• Stuck for an idea? What about a top ten? How about a rant about something that bothers you? Take a picture of something and write about it. Tell us about something you just bought.
• Sometimes I get an idea out of the blue when I am away from my computer or a pen and paper. I use my phone and save a draft text to remind me or send myself an email from my phone.

If you are interested in joining our blog duel then feel free to contact myself or Carrie through the contact forms on our blogs. We will accept new participants at our own discretion and will kick people out of the duel as we see fit. Please remember that this isn't a serious competition for who can update the most or who can go the longest without skipping a week. It is simply a friendly challenge to remind and motivate us to update regularly.