Beginings of blogging . . .

What better why to truly start a blog than to document some of my initial thoughts about the process of blogging. Unlike my first post this is not going to be a collection of thoughts scribbled down on a piece of paper/post. This entry requires thought, draft and re-draft. This I think is something that the majority of posts, which, if  you want to make any sense. . .  should include. 

I once read a article about starting a blog and perhaps more importantly how to keep it going. Unfortunately I can no longer find this, i think it was by Seth Gooding but not sure, (if anyone remembers please let me know where to find)  instead i have using trusty google i have found 10 tips for starting a blog. This gives you a great ideas on structuring your blog, but does not talk about how difficult it can be to start a blog.

What i would like to do here is give you an idea of some of the problems you might in counter in your first weeks of writing a blog and possible ways that you can overcome them. Please remember, I am by no means a professional blogger, i would not say i am a particularly good writer, in fact i used to hate anything that involved writing. What i am though, is a people person. . . so just maybe my blog will work?

Some points to conside : -

• Finding your Blog – I have so much to say, so much i want to talk about. Where do you start, Does it matter where you start? Finding your topic, your area and your style… For me this is not important, for me its about having some where to talk about anything. The things you enjoy, the bad things that happen, whatever. I in visage over time my blog turning into something which has more structure and a theme to it, in fact i already have thoughts i would like to continue throughout my blog. If you are not quite sure what to write about, write about anything . . see where it takes you. If you cant think about anything do what I’m doing, write about it.  ’Thinking about Nothing’?

 

• Staying on Topic – Its hard, for me anyway to stay writing about the same thing for any length of time. I am always wanting to move to the next thing, the result from a writing point of view is a complete mess. Its almost worth me just having a twitter account and loosing the blog altogether. For example I now want to go off on a little rant about twitter etc. Enough said! I should imagine that this is not the same for all. I should think that there are those reading this who feel that hey drag on when writing. I do not necessarily think that this is a bad thing either way, what is important is to be aware of it. I am not talking about querying everything you write, i think that almost makes blog worthless and boring if I’m honest. Maybe go back and re-read once before you publish, after that go back later at any point and read some old posts from a month back, six months back. What do you think about them, what would you change if you did it again. Don’t, whatever you do destroy the sole of our blog. 

 

• Record your idea’s – Kinda related to the above, remember all those times that a good idea for a piece of writing pops into your head and its gone the next minute. Write it down, make a list on another page. That list will be great for the days you don’t feel like writing or cant think of anything to think about. 

 

• Set your self a target post rate – This helps you and your readers. If you post regularly, people are far more likely to read often. I feel that it also stops your blog from going stale. If its only 2 posts a month, its better than one month there being 4 and then another 4 posts 3 months later.

 

• The Readers – Something i have noticed is that they me and go, i hope that over time them will become more loyal or my blog will be found more easily through search. I think for those of us who have limited readers, its important to remember that its not all about who’s reading what you write. Its also about what you get out of it. . .

 

I think on that rather profound not i will leave this post, have a think, if there are any other problems which you think i may have missed please comment or get some posts up on your blog. I hope to follow this post and my previous one with some more information on how to use search in the best possible way to get readers to your blog. Stick around you may find it helpfull . . .