Okay, I'll start the ball rolling by answering these myself. I actually have four separate blogs (I know, I'm nuts, I'll cover that below), so I'll answer the questions for each blog individually, starting with:
1) What is your blog?
VignetteBricks
2) What is the general theme of your blog, or do you have a general philosophy that drives your blogging?
This blog is narrowly focused on vignettes. When I started the blog I stayed exclusively with 6x6 or 8x8 vigs, but later expanded to larger (e.g. 16x16) scenes that someone dubbed 'bignettes'. I try not to go larger than that, because you could get to the point where you just said anything with a fig in it was a vig, and that doesn't really fit what I'm trying to do. I post on people's MOCs and relevant news such as contests with vig categories.
I actually have multiple blogs, as I will get into below, because I strongly believe in niche blogs. I really like it when a blog has a particular character. Not that I don't love what Andrew and company have done with the Brothers Brick, but to me having a lot of different blogs all trying to cover the latest cool MOCs across themes would end up with too much duplication. When a blog has a particular focus, they can delve more deeply and have their own individual charm. E.g., look at
Lego Diem - yes, they often get into some of the same really cool MOCs we see elsewhere, but their focus is more on LEGO as a lifestyle, so they'll do things like the LEGO themed birthday cake, or some kid proudly displaying their DUPLO MOC, etc. With niche blogs you can follow someone if you are into a particular theme, or not. For instance, I don't really check the various NXT blogs, as I'm not into that. There is also the chance that non-AFOLs might get into a blog because they like that theme, even if they aren't into LEGO itself. For instance, there are a lot of non-AFOLs who are into programming and robotics that get excited about the aforementioned NXT stuff. Or, for instance, there is a great opportunity for someone to start a LEGO Railroading blog that would excite both AFOLs because of the LEGO aspect, and model railroaders because of the theme, whereas these same model railroaders may not read the Brothers-Brick, even though there is the occasional great train MOC.
Oh, one other blog philosophy. While I'm in an adult community and have no personal problem with curse words or bawdy themes for MOCs, I've always tried to keep my blogs family friendly. So occasionally there are really great MOCs that I leave aside.
3) Why did you start or join this blog?
At the time, early 2005, there was no central home for vignettes. They really got started in the English-speaking AFOL world in fall 2004 and had become popular, with people posting on various forums and on Brickshelf. Yes, there was a new group on Lugnet, but at the time Lugnet was starting to die off. I wanted to gather together and put some focus on vigs, which would otherwise be scattered across multiple themes and therefore posted on different places like CC, FBTB, CSF etc.
4) How do you go about blogging?
Poorly. Every day I go through recent MOCs on Brickshelf and Flickr (by the way, I use
Picishare as a way to search Flickr - you can search recent postings by any key word, so you can quickly go through everything posted in the last day that has LEGO anywhere in the title/tags/description) and I bookmark things for my blogs. Unfortunately I'm really bad about getting around to blogging them. Life (wife, kids, work) take up the bulk of my time, and when it comes to online LEGO, my first order of business is CC. Eventually I'll get around to posting things. With Blogger you have the ability to schedule posts, so I'll often schedule a week or so in advance to have something appear every day or every other day, so the blogs look more active than they actually are. I still have long gaps in posting though. Ideally I'd have something new on each of my four blogs at least a couple of times a week, more for vigs and microscale as there are many more relevant MOCs for those themes.
5) What is your biggest challenge with regards to blogging?
Time. Also, I try not to just duplicate the other blogs, so if the same thing has shown up on the BB, Fascinating LEGO Model of the Day, LEGO Diem, Klocki etc, I go back and forth on whether I should also post it on my own blog. On the one hand I don't want to simply be derivative, but on the other I want, say, MicroBricks, to be the definitive site on microscale, etc.
6) Do you have any advice for others who are considering starting a LEGO themed blog?
As I noted above, I'm a big fan of niche blogs. Find a gap in the current array of blogs and come up with your own. For instance, I mentioned above that there is not (I don't think there is, at least) a blog devoted to LEGO trains. Seems like a great opportunity for someone in that theme. Or they don't have to be related to an official theme. For instance, I think a great blog would be devoted to comic book heroes in LEGO. Yes, there have been the official Spider-Man and Batman themes (and other stuff like video games), but also lots of great MOCs on things like the X-Men etc. If I didn't already have a bunch of blogs, I'd consider something like that. Or a million different things - Harry Potter, customization, sculpture, LEGO animals, Star Wars (hmm, there's got to be a good SW LEGO blog out there), history, science, art, etc etc etc. Find something that excites you and that connects with LEGO.
My other piece of advice is to stick with it. I know, I know, I've had long dry spells with my blogs, but it's frustrating when someone starts up a blog that seems like a great new idea, and after three posts their blog sits idle.
1) What is your blog?
MicroBricks
2) What is the general theme of your blog, or do you have a general philosophy that drives your blogging?
Again, this is a niche blog. The focus is on all topics related to microscale - MOCs, contests, reviews of official sets, community news like the collaborative micropolis display, etc.
3) Why did you start or join this blog?
As with vigs, micro building goes across normal theme barriers, so someone might post a micro castle to CC while a micro spaceship goes to CSF. There is a micro forum on Lugnet, but by late 2006 that felt like an even less viable forum to me. I didn't want to dilute the theme of VignetteBricks, so I started a second blog.
4) How do you go about blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
5) What is your biggest challenge with regards to blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
6) Do you have any advice for others who are considering starting a LEGO themed blog?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
1) What is your blog?
MinilandBricks
2) What is the general theme of your blog, or do you have a general philosophy that drives your blogging?
Another niche blog, this one focused on building at or near the miniland scale. Here we mostly see characters, since building a full building at this scale is a massive undertaking, though we've had some of those. I also put in news about the Legoland parks or official store displays, since this is an important scale there.
3) Why did you start or join this blog?
As I noted in my
welcome message, really cool MOCs can sometimes be overlooked in less popular building styles, like miniland. Within a few days of eachother, in April 2008, Steve Bishop posted a bunch of
Futurama characters, Nathan Proudlove posted his
Mystery Machine and Lino Martins posted the
Batmobile. I commented in a post on the Brothers-Brick that someone should really start a Miniland scale blog. Well, no one else jumped up, so I started one. By this point I realized that I was over my limit, so I called for a co-blogger. Later I called for co-bloggers for VignetteBricks and MicroBricks as well.
4) How do you go about blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
5) What is your biggest challenge with regards to blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks. Also, there just aren't as many MOCs at this scale as the others, so this blog was always intended to be less active than those.
6) Do you have any advice for others who are considering starting a LEGO themed blog?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
1) What is your blog?
GodBricks
2) What is the general theme of your blog, or do you have a general philosophy that drives your blogging?
I tag this as 'blogging at the intersection between LEGO and religion'. As a religious person, I'm interested in how people's faith touches every aspect of their life. As I note in my
welcome message, religion has been the inspiration for art for thousands of years, and I see LEGO as another medium for creation.
3) Why did you start or join this blog?
I've always been interested in LEGO and religion. Perhaps the most obvious case of this was Brendan Powell Smith's Brick Testament project. If you look back to Brendan's posts on the BT as long ago as 2002 you'll see I gave extended responses and got involved in discussion with him and others about using LEGO for religious themes. Last year I found a group devoted to Christians and LEGO and I was initially excited about the idea - I was hoping this would be further discussion about the intersection of religious themes and LEGO building. Instead it was (mostly) a series of debates on evolution etc with no connection at all to themes of religion/God etc. There so much good stuff out there, like the BT, or like some of the great cathedral MOCs we've seen, that I wanted there to be a site devoted to this topic. And so was born my fourth blog. At this point I did make a more concerted effort to recruit others to help continue my other blogs so I could let them go on autopilot and focus more on this blog.
One of my real hopes for this blog is that the audience would move beyond the AFOL community to also include anyone interested in religious themes. Back when I started VB I made a real effort to explain terms like MOC and AFOL, but I kind of gave that up as it seemed that 99% of my readers were already in the community. GodBricks did get a mention in the New York Times, which was really cool, and probably got more viewers that way.
4) How do you go about blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
5) What is your biggest challenge with regards to blogging?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks. Also, most AFOLs are in the western world, where the culture is dominated by Christianity. Therefore, most of the relevant MOCs are related to Christianity. I want to include more from other faiths, but there are just fewer MOCs out there relevant to Hinduism, or Islam, etc. Another issue with this blog is that I try to have more of a discussion of what the MOC is about rather than just saying "Here is X by Y" and showing the picture, but that does take a lot more time - especially when the MOC is on a Buddhist theme or something else where I have no personal experience and have to do a little bit of online research to learn more about that theme.
6) Do you have any advice for others who are considering starting a LEGO themed blog?
See my answer above under VignetteBricks.
Bruce