Thursday, 11th of November 2010 at 11:12:01 AMby Randil – This weekly column will help guide you down the road to writing and maintaining your very own blog! Not sure where to start? Not a problem. In this blog we will be covering how to get started, where to go, and tips on what to write. Join us every week for a new article to help you with your blog!
All of those thoughts exploding in your mind! It’s too bad you have nowhere to share these thoughts so people can see just what is driving you crazy every day. Well, that’s where I come in.
“What the heck is a blog”, you might ask. Well, a blog is sort of like an online journal. Some people keep them just so they can write their own thoughts and have them stored in a central location, while others write to review, express an emotion, or just plain rant about a topic which is near and dear to them. We all have those things that peak our interest and cause us to want to stand up and tell people how we feel about them; like politics, the environment, or even video games. Finding the topic that you are passionate about is the first and most important step to creating your own blog. You need to be able to find a topic that you are excited to explore and write about, without ever becoming bored or just plain tired of learning about it. There are thousands of blogs started every day and millions of these blogs only have one or two total entries before they are abandoned altogether. Don’t let that be the way your blog ends!
Ask yourself, “Self, what peaks your interest?”
What was the first thing that comes to your mind? Was it something you do every day? Something you have always wanted to learn more about? Or, even something you studied in school? Whatever it is, use it as a stepping stone to opening up your mind, exploring your writing skills and letting the world hear… err, read, what you have to say.
While everything I have written thus far may seem like a simple task, you should really think about what you are truly passionate about to enable you to write without ever feeling as though it is work. Blogging should be fun, informative (for both you and your readers), and always enjoyable.
Join us next week when we will discuss how to set up your blog and get started with your first entry.
Randil, more commonly known as ‘Theophanes’ around the World of Warcraft Community, currently resides in Pocatello, Idaho where he is currently an IT Support Engineer for a small ISP.
When Randil is not at work, he greatly enjoys playing World of Warcraft, snowboarding, and podcasts. While his first foray into creating a podcast went down in miserable and not-so-glorious flames, he still loves recording audio of his own and contributing to his favorite podcasts. He also hopes to become a voice-over actor with a memorable role in a video game at some point in his lifetime.
nice blogging post ^_^
in my own experience to add to this, i find usually people dont realy care about what you had for lunch and why the girl at work is a biatch 😛 so if you are looking for a blog with plenty of readers, finding a niche that gives people something helpful or interesting to read is a good place to start. many people start with a certain wow class they love for example when aspiring to blog about a wow related topic. it can be hard figuring out what blog topic is right for you at first, but once youve found out what you excel at or enjoy the most with your blog the rest comes naturally 🙂
This is a great column. I listen to the Twisted Nether podcast even when I have taken a few WoW-breaks because so much of it relates to blogging in general.
For me it took several false starts with blogs until I found the right “voice” and theme. Sadly, that was the blog that got hacked and I had to start it over again. I agree that posting more than a few times is critical but I also think that if after a few posts you dont like where it is going either change direction or start a new one. I think the worst thing you can do is stick with a blog an/or format you feel lukewarm about.
n00b!
Writing about setting up a blog and it’s intention, to help beginners, may refer to a good idea, but all in all, this step seems pretty simple to me, and even the setup via blogger or wordpress shouldn’t take more then 5 minutes due to its self self-explanatory handling. Maybe it will be useful to some beginners, but I would be rather interested in the running of a blog. Why should I choose blogger as provider rather then wordpress ? WordPress only supports up to 35 reader, is this enough ? Should I host my blogger website on a extern server I’ve rented ? What advantages and disadvantages does this have ?
I think these questions are pretty important, if you managed it to make the first steps and plan to enjoy your blog in the future too.
In a nutshell, great post for beginners, but I think more would be rather interested in detailed content about specific problems.
I absolutely understand where you are coming from. What we want to do with this column is to go through the entire life-cycle. Where you are right now is further along down the road than what it’s being targeted for. As we move forward you will hopefully see much more information that will be of use to you. The plan is to get to those things you mentioned as we progress.
Thanks for the ideas and I’m sure Randil will take all these great comments into account as he works on the next intsallment.