BLOGGING TIPS - The First Bloggers

BLOGGING TIPS – The First Bloggers


By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting CC November 2010

I read an article (not sure who the author is) the other day, that had me rolling around in stitches – actually, if the truth be told it was one of those from the gut, belly laughter. The kind that makes tears roll down your cheeks!

Ok, so I really need to share right now – not so?

The first couple of lines went “Preachers of the middle ages were faced with the same problem as modern day bloggers. Every week they had to write a sermon and present it to the congregation – they were the first bloggers, in a sense.”

Sure, I fell about with laughter – what a ridiculous idea! I mean think about if for a moment. Preachers = Bloggers – come on now – can you just see the picture? No, not the one of me falling about with laughter – but rather at the preacher, full of pomp and ceremony, jumping around on his spindly little legs, ranting and raving or prancing about like a little Mussolini, full of fire and brimstone – his blog!

So yeah, I laughed and then I laughed some more and then the serious side of life kicked in and I looked at the reality of things.

In those days there was no internet, no computers and in fact many people could not even read (not that that has changed at all). So, how did people get to hear about things, events, politics, the law and of course – don’t forget about religion. Well through there local parish priest during the course of his weekly sermon!

Every week the priests had to write their sermon, which was partly about religion (and the wrath of God or the fate of the sinner) and partly about what was happening in the community (births, deaths, weddings and funerals) and partly about the new laws that were being passed (new taxes that were due and payable or the next hanging or burning at the stake) and if he could tie it all up and be entertaining at the same time – well that naturally was a bonus for his congregation.

Can you just imagine how much more difficult it must have been for him to find material, than it is for you? Think about it for a moment – he was confined by his religion (not to mention his own religious beliefs), bound by modesty and piousness (hell I can just see that particular video in my head) and then tied up and gagged by the laws of the land!

No freedom of press here and there were even those that were considered heretics and heathens or witches or who knows what, for having a truly unique thought of their own. They were branded enemies of the state/King/church/people if they so much as blinked in the wrong direction! Don’t think I would have lasted very long under these circumstances!

Point that I am trying to make though, is constrained as they were, these preachers were able to ‘perform’ on a weekly basis. Week after week, they had to come up with something that would hold their audience captive and the only place that they could do any real kind of research was the Bible.

In order to do this successfully, they would have to, not only be inspired but also have some sort of structure or theme, to what they wrote or as my good old English teacher always used to say “It must have a beginning, a middle and an end.”

So nothing really has changed has it – it is all in the telling of the story!

The fact of the matter is that writing can be extremely difficult if you don’t have any inspiration or even with inspiration, if you don’t have any structure.

Actually if the truth be told, like life, like business, like projects, like relationships – pretty much everything works a whole lot better if you have inspiration and structure in place.

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za