I’m just getting started with this format and expect many refinements as time goes on so may answer this question differently in six months. Who knows?

http://ronsblog.thisoldbuilder.com/

To answer your question, I am probably the most analytical of the fashion bloggers and most of my knowledge has come from the books I offer on the blog. Some comes from first-hand just puzzling the thing out for myself. My readers constantly challenge me.

Choosing my topic for any given post or series is where intuition comes in.

Honestly, I don’t know everything and, as a busy mom, it sometimes takes me longer than I would like to do the research. But there are thousands of personal opinion fashion voices out there. I hope it’s refreshing to have a more objective alternative.

I try to blend what I know with what I feel. With 18 years in the auto industry, I feel I have a certain level of “expertise”. When I go with intuition, it is influenced by my experience.

Was this post a hunch? Hmmm – a hunch based upon reading something in a related area that made sense – so I guess a bit of both.

My plan is to talk more about them once I gain my experience, knowledge, and competence. In the meantime, I am considering interviews and guest blogging as a way to talk about my weak areas on the site.

I also write a travel blog ( http://www.trevorstravels.com/ ) where I relate my extensive travel experiences in and knowledge of Australia. Last January I spent nearly four weeks trekking and travelling in Nepal and my blogging about that heavily relies upon my experiences while there and reflections upon what I saw and did. I do not call upon a deep knowledge base – though that is growing as I do more reading.

Your approach to sourcing is directly reflected in the depth of your topics and posts.
Thanks again.
-Dan

For me, both knowledge and intuition is important.

I write about living in Japan as a Foreigner. That is what defines my blog. The things I learn here in Japan is the knowledge that I share. For that I choose not to do a lot of research in books and magazines because I as a one person blog could never compete with a really knowledge intense site such as wikipedia (to give an extreme example). My knowledge is of course limited, but I know more than someone who does not live in Japan. That is were I provide value for my reader I think.

Intuition comes in when choosing what to write a post about. For me it would be difficult to blog without being guided by intuition.

Intuition only plays a small part in my blogging, in that I sometimes know intuitively what my readers are interested in reading. Feedback through comments is a good guide here.

On my birding blog http://www.trevorsbirding.com/ I mainly rely on my knowledge base gained over thirty plus years of going out into the field and actually watching birds. A lifetime of experience to draw upon is invaluable and can give one’s writing something of a voice of authority.

This vast amount of experience is backed up by the same number of years studying books, referring to field guides, reading magazines and participating in forums and newsgroups on the internet over the last ten years. I also attend the local birders monthly meetings but not as frequently as I’d like due to distance.

My main inspiration comes from what is right in our garden. The constant activity in our garden is a rich lode I mine frequently for inspiration. Wherever I travel I record what I see, drawing constantly on those observations for my blog writing. Most writing books and many articles about writing urge one to Write What You Know.

What I hope emerges in my writing is a passion for my subject, and a deep desire to share that with my rapidly growing number of readers.