Blogspiration: Royce Young of DailyThunder.com

Royce Young is the man behind the DailyThunder.com blog, a project he started five years ago in his final semester of college that has since become his job. He’s 27 now, married to an elementary school teacher and working full-time both as a blogger independently and as a sportswriter at CBSSports.com. On Twitter, Royce has over 27,000 followers. His website gets an average of one million page views per month, with 100,000 unique visitors. Royce lives in Oklahoma City, and with the combination of both his blog and CBSSports, he makes enough money to make this his career.

Royce’s blog is unique because he started it simply to put his thoughts down somewhere, but has since developed into his own brand. “I had decided pretty much in my last semester of school that I wasn’t going to be a semester,” Royce said. “But I missed writing and more than anything, missed putting my thoughts an opinions in one convenient place.” He is the sole writer at DailyThunder, commenting on each and every game the OKC Thunder plays in, both home and away. He also covers various other things, such as trades, interviews players do, and how other teams will make or break the Thunder.

Royce blends the traditional beat coverage of a team with fan-blogging. He isn’t afraid to publicize that he’s a Thunder fan, something that most traditional media frowns upon. Being passionate about the team allows him to connect with fans because they share the same favorite players, but he also has no trouble calling the team or individuals out for doing something he thinks is wrong. Royce gets to talk to players and coaches on a regular basis, which gives his fans the feeling of an everyday fan getting one-on-one time with Kevin Durant.

Daily Thunder, being run by a single person, has a single voice. Normally, that’s great for a blog, but in the sports world, it can be dangerous. However, it has established Royce Young as a local celebrity in the minds of Thunder fans. Royce encourages people to blog about things they are passionate about. “People love to start blogs. Not everyone likes to continue writing them,” Royce said. If you find something you’re passionate about writing, you’ll continue to do so.

Royce’s biggest bit of advice is that a blogger needs to find their voice. “It’s kind of simple,” he explains, “find the style of writing you’re most comfortable with, and best at.” Royce recommends writing, and writing a lot, to develop your style. He says it’s almost embarrassing how many words he’s written over the last five years, but because of that, he’s improved a lot as a writer.

Stay Creative or Die Trying.

Recently, my blogging professor (yes, I attend a college that offers blogging as a class) invited a guest speaker to come and talk to us. I won't go into all the details of this man or what he said, but the most important thing that came from this speaker was the ever-so-simple reminder:

Stay creative.

Seriously, that's one of the most important things in today's world, but it also happens to fall into the "Most Forgotten" category as well. We're so focused on moving, going, working. We forget that life, as we know it, is actually quite short. You can't spend your entire life trying to fit into a certain box. That's not what we were created for.

Whatever you believe (or don't believe) as far as deities go, I don't think anyone will tell you that we live for no real reason. Deep down, I think every person wants to find that reason. For me, that's a big reason why I've fallen in love with the idea of wanderlust. It explains my ever-present need to get away in the sense of discovering the meaning of life, the reason I exist, and why I hate the taste of tomatoes. 

In all honesty, Dave Rhea had a lot of wonderful things to say. He's a really interesting guy to listen to, as far as speakers go. I'm not the most attentive listener in lecture-type settings, but he did a good job. 

Check Out This Blog!

Sara has been running this blog for quite a while, and she's always entertaining. She's a 21-year-old (almost 22, Happy Birthday soon!) blogging from Georgia about all things in her life: school, nannying, and her current favorite nail polishes. Sara's blog is easy on the eyes and fits into her preppy style, a big plus to all her followers. Her layout is very clean and her posts are all appropriate in length. Depending on the topic, some are longer than others. She's good about using images to draw readers in as well as emphasize the things she's discussing.

As far as a weakness goes, the only thing I can really point at is her headline. I absolutely love the chevron and the simplicity of the design, but the text could be a little bigger. Ultimately, that's just a personal preference and really isn't hindering anyone from reading her blog. I really hope that I can mimic Sara's ease with blogging. She has a way of making it feel like she's a close friend discussing things over coffee rather than some distant person talking about her nail polish.

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