Who knew there was so much I had to say about blogging? Heck, I don’t even know what I blog about, sometimes. But on Friday, I had a call from Lin of BlogTV.sg; she’s one of the presenters of the show, and she wanted me to get on the show to deliver some answers to the blog topic of the episode.

I hesitate to say “insight”, rather than answers, because I wonder how novel or astute what I said was.

It was completely impromptu, since I only knew about it on the same morning (or I would’ve worn something nicer) but I went anyway—surprising, given my usual resistance to spontaneity.

So I was on with two other bloggers: Grace Cheng, who writes a forex blog, and Dorothy, who quit her job in a bank to design clothes and has a blog about all of that. (Who also has her last name listed nowhere on her blog or site, which makes my last sentence very imbalanced…)

The topic was on how to make money from your blog, and I was to be the “expert” on it. Since I make absolutely no money from this blog, you can see how first-hand my information might be. Also, given that they addressed me as “senior writer from CIO and ComputerWorld, slash tech guru, slash expert”, I realise that the length of a salutation is inversely proportionate to how much you actually know.

Interestingly, neither of the other two really make money from their blogs either (in the form of ads or endorsements), but treat theirs as forums and publicity machines.

Which I think is a more practical use of blogs. What I said on the show was that people shouldn’t hope to make real money from blogs unless they find a niche, a proper returning audience and have the commitment to make it a regular effort. (Not to mention general writing talent, which I wasn’t sure how to mention without sounding uppity.)

I won’t go on about it here, because I probably have a lot more to say, but with things like BlogFeast ruining what blogs stand for to begin with, I hope the show helps educate on the misconceptions and the general need that people have to monetise or make tangible their returns on most endeavours.

They asked me whether I was making money or placing ads on this blog. My simple answer is that I neither fulfil a niche nor can afford the regular, concerted effort to blog given that I write for a living and intend to separate my blog from what looks like work as far as possible, so I don’t.

Case in point: Both Grace and Dorothy have blogged about Friday’s interview already, and I’m late to the plate.

Don’t know when it’ll be airing, but it shouldn’t be too long more. Will post when I know.

That…is really not what you think it is. It’s an image of my vocal cords, snapped from the nifty DVD of the scope examination that my ENT doctor just did.

Apparently, I’ve strained my vocal cords. And developed a pair of smallish (though surprisingly effective) nodules, which have for the past month made my voice hoarse and noticeably shrunk my singing range.

(By the way, I decided to freeze frame the bit where the nodules aren’t actually touching but are joined by a line of mucus, for your benefit. Ha ha ha.)

The doctor’s put me on a round of steroids and told me to lay off the speaking and singing for the next month till my next appointment. If the nodules turn out to be permanent, the next step is to operate. “Just a bit of GA and we’ll slice them right off, ‘kay?” he says, sounding awfully chirpy.

Honestly, what scares me is having to get scoped again. It really wasn’t as painless as they say, and I have a pretty high threshold of pain. Unlike my father, who is a hypochrondriac and actively looks forward to getting scoped (hello little green men, are you reading this?), I think I can do without the experience again.

Though I do wonder which is the bigger sacrifice—getting scoped or restricting my speaking for a month. Hey, maybe I’ll blog more, as an outlet. All these brain farts have to come out somewhere, right?

Update: Completely uncalled-for screencaptures of my nasal scope. Enjoy!