How to... Blog

How to blog, or rather how I blog.

First of all, I suggest you have an enjoyment of writing. It does not have to be a general liking, just a liking for writing. If there is one type of writing that you enjoy, then that may be enough.

Personally I can't say writing has ever been too difficult for me. I enjoy writing fiction, although rarely do. Rather I find myself mulling over thoughts, ideas, and concepts; as you may of noticed if you read this frequently. If typing is not your forte (ooh, I really hope that's spelt correctly.. pronounce it as for-TAY), then maybe pen and paper is where it is at for you. If this is the case and you still want to publish your works you could have a friend type it up or find a scanner and upload pictures of your writing. I find that if there is a small entry on paper and it is scanned into a computer, it makes for a much more interesting post.

If you've found a pleasure in putting thought into text, then the next step is getting a blog. There are several services out there if you are not willing to put the time into coding your own website (which is much easier than it sounds, but to make it look phenomenal I suspect there will be too much work for the average casual blogger). Try Blogger, or Tumbler, or Posterous. I can't think of any other off the top of my head, but there are several several more.

My personal favorite is, of course, Blogger (or is it Blogspot? I think Blogspot was bought by Google, and the name merged and is now kind of interchangeable?). I have a couple of friends who use Tumbler, and a few people who don't know me but I know of them who I check up on their Tumbler. For my Digital Media class I was required to create a Posterous account and it is a great service but I don't like it for Blogging. I feel it is more aimed towards posting pictures, videos, so many various file formats; and then adding a few words to it. I like to write in large chunks of text that causes some people to cringe as they see the page load and the scroll bar to the right of their screen shrink and shrink.

You may just need some people to follow, once you have your blog up and running. Following people is easy, especially if you have friends who blog (and I'm sure you all do). Because they are your friend, they do not even have to be good writers; though I am glad everyone I follow always manage to post something that I will be willing and wanting to read. If you cannot find a friend who blogs already, perhaps try doing some searches on Google or see if the service you are using has a search. See if the service you are using has a random blog button, or a button to just scroll to the next blog that is in line. You are bound to find something interesting.

I don't think I would come back to this wonderful site if it was not for the people I follow. My friend, Japanese Student Life, was encouraged to create a blog to help with their Japanese language studies. I don't know how much of that she has been doing; but if she gets around to reading this, this is my reminder for her to get back on that. Having friends who blog making writing so much better. There's real people reading my posts, not that the people I don't know aren't real. It's just, better to know that my friends are reading what I type up; it's more personal that way. This may become a problem, but I will get to that soon. The best things about friends who blog, is they will be there to prompt you to keep writing. If they see their new post feed is dry, they may ask you for some reading material. I find I'm the one prompting my friends to post every once and a while, but I think they appreciate it?

Once you have a blog going, and you have gotten past the first post that everyone seems to find the formula for but never are sure where they get it from (Well, this is my blog... I'll be writing what I want in it. I might forget about it, but for now here it is. I live in a small town, here's a little bit more about me, and maybe even a few things that interest me. Well okay now, until next time, good-bye Internet), you must consider your audience, what you will be writing, and how you will be writing it. I think I'll split this into three paragraphs.

Here is the problem with friends reading your blog. Often when you post something on the Internet, you want it to be anonymous. Often when you post something on the Internet, you want your friends to read it. Often when you post something on the Internet, there's a chance you may not be able to say what you really want because you are aware that your friends are reading it. Many people create blogs to rant a bit, I think it's a great place for me to let out some frustration if an issue is irritating me and I cannot find anyone to speak to about it. Even if I can talk to people, sometimes an emotionless screen is what I need. If you know your readers are your friends, you may be afraid to offend them or feel like you are obligated to somehow promote them. Like your favorite news channel playing what it knows the viewers want to see, your writing may become biased. This is not a problem for all, but it should be considered. Do you want your friends reading your blog?

I enjoy my friends reading what I post, but I do occasionally find myself in a double take regarding what I am typing up. If I'm mentioning a negative social situation, will the person who I am describing know it is them despite the lack of any name? Will this offend them if they do read it and know it is them? What if you are saying you generally dislike something about a social group, an idea, or an event. Your friends may have a high contrasted view, as many of my friends have to some of my views. I like to have people read my writing, and I love seeing the page hits go up, but I still consider who's reading my writing. I avoid a bias, but I'm sure it's still there.

Now, what will you be writing? This is not something you have to definitely decide, or even think about. It should just be pulled into mind. Will you write about your emotions, the events of the day surrounding you, the events of the day surrounding world leaders, the thoughts that mull around in your mind and have a need to be shared, the thoughts that you think over but few of your friends will listen to you?

I dislike what I consider a traditional blogging style. I do occasionally write about my life, what I've been up to, school is a common topic; but I don't want to write about my problems. I don't want to write that I was made extremely happy or moderately upset due to the actions of any unnamed individuals. I want my writing to be not from the individual who I am, but my thoughts (if that makes any sense). I don't want my blog to be a journal, if I wanted one of those I would get one or just get a .wps file on my computer and type away until the several thousand page limit hit me. Honestly, I think I could reach that limit after several years but I have no intention of finding out. Now that I think of it.. I think the limit is somewhere around three million? I could be completely wrong, but I'm getting pulled off into a tangent. Tangent are a key piece of my blogging. Do you want them to be yours, or should you treat your writing like an essay? You have your thesis, and everything must relate to it.

As for how you will be writing it, there are many options and they really don't need to be a formal decision. You can choose to write formally, informally, poetically, even in a point form (although I don't think that would be very fun for readers to read). Will you use proper grammar, capitals, and punctuation?

I enjoy my I's being in an upper case, and a good structure to my sentences. I try to vary my sentences types, and when I find that I am too far off topic or need to shift to another related topic I may happen to put in a new paragraph. At the moment I'm splitting this into groups of two paragraphs; a general idea about blogging and then my personal views and actions around that idea. I enjoy my writing to have a sense of 'proper,' even if my spelling is terrible often and I'm sure my grammar has frequent mistakes. I go back and forth between formal and informal, first person and third person, and I'm sure I often notice literary errors such as this but leave them as they are. I enjoy my words to be spelt correctly, and this is why I use Google Tool bar for the spell check on it only. I've been debating using FireFox, for it will spell check for me automatically; but I think I like this way better. I get the mass of text out then fix it after. If I can see a word is wrong I may feel compelled to fix it on spot and interrupt my typing flow. The error was parallelism, or something like that. My English class caused me to get a bit gritty about things like that and I notice when some little things in writing are incorrect not that it makes a difference. No one is going to be grading my blog, although I have sent a few teachers to read some of my posts. I'm debating sending my new physics teacher to read some of my physics related posts and see what he thinks.

Finally, if you want people to read your posts I think constant posting is the key. Keeping your ramblings to a minimum and avoiding having posts that are consistently longer than your arm may detour many readers, but I don't care. Those who stick it out to read what I have to say may or may not of learned something, if I can help it. Comments are important. If you are lucky enough to get comments, they will probobly be from your friends, but it is worth it to reply to them. If you comment below them, they will probobly not get to read it, but if you put a reply in your next post referencing to their comment it will make them feel.. special. I know it makes me smile when I see my comments have been answered. Even once you've commented below their comment and replied to them in your next post, talk to them in person "Oh hey there, I read that you thought this about some post of mine. You should elaborate," will always start a good conversation if your post was about something that interests both of you.

As long as you post constantly, or at least for me, as long as I post consistently it appears my page hits go up. Sometimes I don't post anything for a week, and I find my hits are one or two over four days. It causes me to be disappointed, but it is expected. I think there is a higher chance of your blog being pulled up by the random button (if this site has one) or perhaps the next button (I'm fairly sure this site has one of those) if you have a new post. I sometimes check my stats four times in a day, just to see if someone has glanced over some of my pages. I'm always confused about some of my post popular posts; such as my post about longboarding. It's always popular even though I think it was possibly a waste of typing. I'm always ecstatic to get a comment and will sometimes complain I don't get any love, which is obviously a reflection of how many comments a I get. Obviously those who are loved get comments, and those who get no comments get no love. I'll accept your half thought through sympathy comments even.

If you are going to blog, make sure you have fun with it. Write about you want to, write when you want to, and say what you wish to. The Internet is there for you to be discovered, and who knows; perhaps you'll get an idea and post it that will catch on and before you know it you have a few hundred people following your posts. Personally, I'll be happy to discover I have ten followers (in fact.. I might even have that many now).

_-Bugworlds-_