Jidhu Jose Photography

Blogger Interview # 10 : Vibhuti Bhandarkar



Q1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your blog?

Ans1.  Good Day and greetings to all my fellow bloggers and readers out here. J
Well, I’m a 29 year old professionally qualified Graphic Designer & Copywriter but I’m only a 3 year old tot in the blogosphere.  I began my writing career in Pune as an English copy-writer for the advertising industry. I was writing for The Times Of India Bi-weekly Supplements-Eastside Plus & Westside Plus, Pune too.
However presently I have taken a break from that and I’m playing the role of a full-time doting mother to my two year old naughty son. So it is quite a bit of a juggling act to hit a balance between these roles and finding some ‘ME’ time.  
 For the sheer sake of staying in touch with my passion for writing and keeping my skills sharpened, I took up creative writing through my blog www.klishmaklaver.blogspot.com  in 2007. Though initially I wasn't so persistent in my writing, I have recently discovered much more about my writing capacities by exploring different genres of Story writing and poetry.  I’m quite devoted to my blog now.
With some blogger achievements in my kitty, I can now dream of achieving some fame as a writer. J 
I also simultaneously run a personal/ fashion blog www.kreativevibes.blogspot.com  which I update once in a while.


Q2. Are you a full time blogger? How did you get into blogging and why?

Ans2. No, I’m not exactly a full-time blogger because I have a lot of other commitments right now but I do see that I devote ample time for quality blogging every day.
I very clearly remember, a fellow copywriter friend of mine who writes at www.jananisatyajit.blogspot.com  initiated me to the world of blogging in 2006. I realized that one could possess a very personalized sounding board and share one’s feelings and thoughts with the world, very easily. The idea of writing a diary and hearing from people who felt one with me sounded like fun. Thus my personal blog ‘Raisonde’tre- Reasons for living’ was born.
However I felt the need for a separate portal for my creative writings since I’d taken a break from my writing career. Thus ‘Klishmaklaver’ was born.  

Q3. If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would    suggest?

Ans 3. Like everybody has the right to maintain their own personal diary, every person with access to the internet has the right to get Blogging. The day and age of qualified writers ruling the roost is gone. Now anyone with the flare for writing can be self-published.
However please remember your thoughts are out in the open here in the blog-o-sphere with an audience so I’d like to list just a few tips to the beginners (Specific to creative writers):-

  • Please follow the basic ethics of blogging. Let there be original content. Plagiarism is a crime.       
  • Please see that the language used and written content is clean (sans profanities and   vulgarities),keeping in mind that your blog may have readers from the ‘Under- 18’ age group.  You would want to host an entertaining/educative blog and not one that is misleading/ corrupting.          
  • Please give your write-ups a spell-check and grammatical error check before you publish. (To err is still human!)      
  • Don’t try to mimic other popular blogs. Being yourself is far more impressive and builds your own  identity over a period of time
  • Your blog template is the face of your blog. Keep it clean and readable. (White, tiny font size lettering  on a black background is not legible at all )         
  • Above all , please  try and interact with your readers who are spending valuable time in reading your work and respect their opinions. Take criticism sportingly! Visit their blogs too and do be kind.


       
     Q4. How do you build a community around a blog and social media?

Ans 4..I believe my writing will get me followers and keep them interested in my blog. I have therefore simply added the very basic ‘Followers’ widget at my blog. I am a regular at BlogAdda and IndiBlogger which are my favourite Indian blogger communities and you will see a lot of my posts on the Indivine. I participate in the competitions arranged here.
 Frankly, I’ve never focused on building a brand image for my blog. Though many bloggers are quite social and have created communities with their blog’s followers.
This can be easily done using Networked blogs and such other applications. Also adding fellow bloggers at the personal FaceBook page, creating an individual pg. for the blog at Facebook or even starting one’s own community for the blog’s followers at Facebook are popular methods. Twitter is also a popular vehicle for following and having fellow bloggers follow your blog’s progress by regularly tweeting about your latest posts.  (I tried it but dint like it much)
There are other bloggy social media other than Facebook like Diggit, etc. but I haven’t tried them either.


Q5. What are your three favorite blogs to read? What makes those blogs special?

Ans 5.Now cutting my favourites list down to only three would be very cruel. I’m an avid reader as well as a writer, you know!
Amongst the Poetic blogs my top 3 (in random order)are:
    My favourite 3 Photography blogs:
          1.       http://mumbai-eyed.blogspot.com
           2.       http://joshidaniel.com/
           3.       http://www.rocksea.org/

     My Favourite story writers:
         1.       http://unalloyedwritingpleasure.blogspot.com/
         2.       http://www.gyanban.com/
         3.       http://sensible-bakwas.com/


     Q6. Which one plugin would you suggest all bloggers to have? 

     Ans 6. The DISQUS comment system is a must!

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