Blogging

[OwlGirl]

Do many of you have blogs? It's something I've been thinking about a lot as I write and would like to have somewhere to put some of my writing, maybe review some novels, talk about my issues with procrastination...

But are there too many out there already? Thinking about it I wouldn't necessarily want lots of people to read it, that wouldn't be the point, but I think it would spur me on to keep writing when motivation is low.

Any advice on starting one up? There seems to be so much choice out there, I just had a quick look around and there is this kind of thing http://www.1and1.com/ as well as something called blogger, or wordpress. I'm not very technologically minded want something that I can just register with and use pretty much straight away.

Thank you

[shadowmoss]

I've had a blog for many years. It is just kind of an online journal. Not terribly interesting. I use blogger. What has been interesting over the years is that as I've used my blogger id to comment on other folks blogs I find interesting, they started reading and commenting on mine. There is now a subset of folks who 'hang out' together in blog land, that overlaps with others. If you just want an online journal, blogger.com will do. Wordpress is equally easy, I believe. Toss a coin.

It took me awhile to form my 'public' blog voice. I'm careful about what I put out there. Details about everyday life, but no identifying info. I find blogs about the details of every day life interesting, personally, so that is what I tend to write about. It's not literary, more a document of what I'm doing when. It has been useful to be able to go back and check when and where different parts of my life happened.

My blog (not updated for a couple of weeks...) is at http://shadowmoss.blogspot.com/ to see what a no-frills blog can look like.

[Spartana]

I read your blog a lot Paula - really enjoy it and also the link to the other blogs you have on your site. Some very interesting people doing very interesting things! Not a blogger myself (not much of a writer) and, to be honest, not much of a reader either but I do like to look at pictures :-)!

[Dhiana]

I've been using wordpress for my blog and have been happy with it. I'm not a writer, have never been a writer nor do I have any ambition to be a writer but I find it a great way to document my progress and process, incl photos & video, while working on various art projects.

Seems like an excellent way for a writer to do the same, doing as much or as little as one wants.

[Kestra]

I like Wordpress. You can start right away if you don't like fiddling with the settings and look of the thing. I've blogged on and off for a few years. Mostly off right now as I'm working a lot on my corporate job. I'd check out your blog if you get it up. Let us know.

[tetrimbath]

I blog regularly. My personal blog http://trimbathcreative.wordpress.com/ (about money, life, etc.) has been on wordpress for about - let me check - four years now, and was on iWeb for two years before that. It has been a good outlet for commenting on opinions and observations without having to guess which friends want to hear or read it. The added upside has been finding that those thoughts that some may discount may also reach people who care deeply about what I've passed along. Blog, whether or not you consider yourself a writer. Pass along your feelings, because that's where the story lives. Do it regularly and you'll probably build an audience.

As for the specific platform, pick one that is easy to export from. Technology changes and I was stung by having to abandon my iWeb version when 1) Apple discontinued supporting a version I was using, and 2) a critical hidden file was corrupted. Very frustrating because some of those posts continue to get good traffic years later, but I can't update the posts without major effort.

Good luck and pass along your link.

[OwlGirl]

Hi guys, thanks for sharing your blogs and your experience with them. I'm still deciding but I'm thinking that I'll figure it out soon. Right now I'm just writing all my stuff down in Word documents and getting pictures and stuff so I have something to go on there when I get it all started. I've been finding myself reading a lot more blogs lately, too, which helps with the enthusiasm a lot.

Thanks again for the help.