The Fool's Interview

Ladies and Gentlemen , I present to you "The Fool"

The Fool

blogs from Bangalore

Lucifer House Inc

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself? your blog , and your aspirations and your hobbies !!

    My blog is a potpourri of sorts – no specific niche or theme. I write almost anything there – fiction, poetry, satire, analysis of current events, philosophy, personal experiences, reviews of books, movies and blogs. Aspiration is to become a bestselling author of course. Other blogging, I try to read whenever I can pull out time. The concept of spare time does not exist in my life.

2. How you first got involved in with blogging , are you an imaginative person?

Seeing my voracious reading, lot of my friends kept suggesting I write as well. So finally one fine day I started a blog. The idea was to do analysis of nation and politics. But the blog had other ideas of its own and it is currently anything but that. Whether I am an imaginative person, reader has to read my post and tell.

3. What do you find most challenging about blogging about your topic?

Well the challenge comes when you are writing on a specific pre decided topic. But I first get ideas and then put them on bits and bytes. If I don’t have ideas, I don’t write. Simple! When I was writing on limited topics in the initial days, I was hardly having any ideas to write. But now with my expanded scope, I have no issues.

4. Tell me about some of the people you have met while working on your blog?

I have met lot of people in these 4 years. It will be extremely difficult to list all of them. If I randomly mention a few, I fear I might leave out a few. Don’t know if people see these things. But I do check if people are mentioning my name and don’t feel too good about being left out. And it would be dishonest to mention only the names of folks who I know will be reading your blog.

5. How would (someone) describe your blogging style?

If you want to know how someone would describe my blogging style, you have to ask someone.

6. What do you do when you are not working on your blog?

Work, what else? Wish I could say I go adventuring on the Everest or travel the country side on a motorbike. But truth is work is what takes up a large part of our lifetime. Even finding time to blog is a luxury.

7 .Where do you see yourself blogging wise in the next 6 months, and 5 years down the road?

I look to be doing more guest posts on niche blogs. With the wide scope of topics I cover and limited time I have for promotions, I don’t see the blog growing great guns. So I need to gain visibility on other blogs. 5 years – hope I keep at it. 10 -15 years if you ask, I want to be bestselling author with the blog becoming a publicity vehicle to communicate with my fans.

8. What networking do you do that you feel helps your blogging business?
Most of my initial traffic came from a site called pagalguy.com where I give advice to MBA aspirants. Then I made some blogger friends through Blog-a-Ton and Café Ginger Chai. Recently I have made more friends on Indi – mostly through chat and a little bit through Indivine. 

9. How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.

I think I answered this in the challenge question. I just randomly write whatever comes to my mind. I don’t write for the sake of writing. Ideas get formed and get themselves written through me. Maybe contest topic or prompts serve as catalyst at times.

10. Whats your strategy with your blog in general?
I mean the point is strategies never work. You need to keep changing tactics on the run. I started as a political commentator. Then I thought of focusing on humor in day to day life.  Then move to reviews, then fiction, then poetry and now thinking of travel blogging. So it is a kind of journey where you don’t know where you are heading.

11. Any specific tips you have for newbee bloggers who want to make it in the blogosphere?

Write. Write. Write. Don’t care about anything. Write about anything and everything. Give yourself a free reign and experiment. Take a journey of self-discovery to find out where your passion lies and what you write best. All other things come later.

12. What would you prioritize? Content? SEO? Traffic? Readers?

Obviously it is Content->Readers->TrafficàSEO. That is the only way it has to be. 

13. Whats the best thing a blogger can give to his readers?

A few moments of forgetfulness from the rigors of life and possibly a few fresh crumbs for thought.

14. A lot of people are interested in blogging for the money earning potential. What are some tips for people interesting in making money from blogging? What are some realistic expectations in regards to what can be made?

I don’t know and never bothered to find out. For me it is just a passion. I just do it for the love of it. But yeah, one day I hope I can make a living as a writer so that I can devote more time to it.

15. What motivates you most in life?

The lure of greatness.

16. What has been your strategy for creating visibility to yourself and your blog?

Visibility on Indiblogger, FB fan page, twitter synch, blogadda synch, writeup café, blogjunta

17 What was the most challenging moment in your blog content development process and why?
NOT ANSWERED !

18. Everyone has a favorite/least favorite post. Name yours and why?
Favorite post is the poem ‘The Fool’ and of course the singer series (Most of them are down now as I am converting them into a novel). Least favorite ‘The Mayan series’ (They just refused to take off as I expected)

19. Name some of the bloggers whom you look up to and why?

My first inspiration was a blog called ‘The compulsive confessor’. I came across her blog through an interview on rediff and somehow reading her blog inspired me to write my famous bride hunt series. Then reading 2 bloggers Karthik and Vibuthi inspired me to take up fiction writing. Leo and SIS are 2 bloggers whose enthusiasm inspired me to do prompts and keep writing more frequently.

20. What is the story behind the name of the blog.

It is a long story. There is a post on this in my blog. Here is the link.

21. your connection with Indi and the experience ?

I have been with Indi 3.5 years. But I started putting posts on Indivine only from last one year. I started contests 6 months back and I already have done a record 13 contests and 31 entries. I have started feeling more connected to Indi last 3-4 months after I became active on forums and Indi chat and making friends.

 
22.Which genre do you feel gets the raw deal?

Proper fiction. I am still not sure if blog is the right platform for fiction. People don’t show a blog post the patience they show towards novels.

23.Which one plugin would you suggest all bloggers to have?

Random post widget.

24.Five adjectives that describe you.

I do not like to use adjectives for myself. I believe one should have an objective view of oneself and adjectives are very subjective.

25.What book would you say has made the biggest impact  good or bad on you?

My check book – both positive and negative depending on the bank balance at that time.

26.Do you get easily provoked by positive/negative comments ??

Very much dependent on my mood at the point I am receiving the comment.

27.Your views on erotic writers ?
Actually I do not have a view on them. Sometimes it is best not to have views on every topic in the world. Makes life much easier that way.

28.Are you a judgmental person , Do you prefer to take sides instead of standing neutral ?

Not really. I try not to judge people. And usually I prefer neutrality. However in my interaction with you, I may have given you reasons to believe otherwise.

29. Your collaboration with Captain for SIP , tell us everything about it ?

Well, his blog is supposed to be one place for readers to find free stories to read. We hope to rope in more writers as we go. My participation depends a lot on my work schedule and my mood swings.

30.What genre attracts you the most and which genre you avoid ?

Fiction attracts me most and tech blogging, product reviews and preachy posts are something I like to avoid.

31.Your Views on Contests and increasing plagiarism ?

Contests kind of help you hone your creativity by restricting you severely and forcing you to find ideas where there are none. Results can be a bit erratic and can be really demoralizing at times. But then everything has its pluses and minuses. Which is the case with the next issue as well – plagiarism. Copying an entire piece verbatim is bad. But copying ideas – I am not sure. Whole human civilization was built on building upon another’s ideas. If we build walls and patents and start fiercely guarding ideas, innovation will come to a standstill. That is what multinational corporates are trying to do.

32.Words for me and my blog .?

I like your enthusiasm. This interview idea was very innovative. This will bring lot of people to your blog. I liked couple of your other posts. Just follow your heart and you will go places. Specific things depend too much on taste of individuals. So I advise you not to take too much advice on that. Your heart will tell you the right things. Just see what other people do on their blogs. Bring whatever appeals to you over to your blog.

Wow , What an awesome interview , perfect finish for this season of interviews , Thanks TF for such a candid interview , it has been really great interviewing you  :) .So guys this marks the end of the interviews I have done this season , so next set of interviews may be next season.