qondio.com/g36D

Starting A Blog - What are you waiting for?

By Rosemary Bell

I have started several blogs over the years and never followed through on them for one reason or another.

But in December 2010 something got me so riled up that I just had to say it. The only place I could say it would be on a personal blog and hope that people would see it and get the message.

I don't know exactly how many have read it, passed it along or have mentioned it to others but it had to be done. It needed to be said.

When I have tried to get a blog set up in the past, I was always worried too much about how it looked and that there wasn't much on it. Not this time.

That morning, I just set up the blog that I had been thinking about for a while, picked a nice simple and clean template that would give me the basics and started writing.

After a week of postings, I was able to submit my blog for a free review and received some constructive feedback on it but the final comment he left me was:

"Starting with a simple theme and focusing on the content of your blog is exactly what I would do as well."

So if you have been thinking about starting a blog and just haven't done it yet. Now is your chance. Don't worry too much about your theme and all the extras, just get writing.

WordPress.com has set up a challenge to bloggers to either post every day on their blog or post once every week for 2011. WordPress will be posting every day to offer you encouragement, inspiration and even give you ideas on what you can post about if you're stuck.

You can find all the information at their site.

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/challenge-for-2011-want-to-blog-more-often/

What are you waiting for? Get to WordPress and set up a blog by finding a simple theme to start with and then just start writing. You can make it look pretty later. Themes can always be changed, links can always be added.

What is important is that you get into the habit of posting either every day or at least once a week.

Good luck with your blogging and Happy New Year.

PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE

Things in life I find annoying
My little place to blow off some steam
whatsbuggingmetoday.wordpress.com

I wish you well with this resolution of yours Rosemary. It is such a productive goal to set yourself.
I've been reading and enjoying your blog posts so far. It is easy to read with a simple theme that doesn't over power the writen words - thank you for sharing it with us all.

Thanks Suzy, I'm really enjoying the blogging and when I saw the WordPress Challenge it's what I needed to really get me going. I am hoping to go back to the other blogs I've started over the years and finally start adding to them.

I may be overly ambitious by trying to do it on two blogs but I am hoping for contributors for the second blog.

I have been procrastinating about starting a blog in Wordpress for some time now, and feel inspired by your intel. Sometimes we just have to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and just DO IT! So thanks to you Rosemary, I am going to do it.
By the way, I read your blog loved it. I left a comment about the Random Acts of Kindness article.

Thanks Barb, yes I already saw the comment and replied.

I am glad you are going to start blogging. Just pick a simple theme and get started posting to your blog. If you read my page on how my first blog got started you can see that it didn't take me long that morning.

Let me know when you've set up your blog and I will stop by for a visit.

p.s. If I have convinced one person to start blogging then I have done my job and that makes me feel good.

Thanks Rosemary for this encouraging intel. I'm not familiar with WordPress but have several blogs on Blogger. I enjoy writing and reading kind comments. So much to learn in the process don't you think? Oh, to be more organized this new year! :)

Thanks Diana,
I have several unfinished blogs on both WordPress and Blogger. I chose WordPress this time for my two blogs because it's just for writing and it was the easiest thing for me at the time. They both have the good and the bad, it all comes down to a matter of choice and how you want to use it and how much experience one has in setting up blogs.

This was a start and I'm hoping that by accepting the WordPress Challenge I will be so busy it will help to get me organized again. I used to be a stickler at that, but have been slacking off. When you have too much time on your hands it seems that not everything gets done.

Rosemary

I've been blogging since 2003, and I love it! I use a paid rss feed server and love that too! Quikonnex has an awesome direct to desktop service that I can't live without. http://quikonnex.com/193 It isn't expensive and since I monetized my blog, it pays for itself.

Thanks Trina,

The WordPress Challenge got me pumped and I was already feeling good about setting up two blogs.

I will stick with WordPress and Blogger for now, until I get a little more experience with the whole blogging platform.

I actually used to maintain a couple of company websites using FrontPage but those were simpler days!

Rosemary

Thank you for sharing this valuable inspiration and information, Rosemary.
I've started a blog with our website, but haven't really got it organized yet.
I'll check out the wordpress challenge and your blogs.
Thank you for the motivation!!
Best wishes.
Frederick

Thanks Frederick,

I actually thought about you when I wrote it because I read a comment of yours on an earlier intel where you mentioned that you hadn't started one yet.

I was hoping it would motivate you to accept the challenge. It's post once every day or post at least once a week. There are quite a few participating and so far I think it is doing great.

Currently it's only for blogs on WordPress but they are asking people who host their own blogs to tag their posting properly and they will look into somehow including them.

It's still not too late to accept the challenge. You should check it out.

Good luck!

Rosemary

Good luck with your blog but I recommend you get your own domain name and use wordpress.org for your blogging needs - much more flexible.

Thanks Larry,

With time that will happen, but for now WordPress.com is fine. I'm in Day 6 of the challenge and having a great time! Both my blogs are actually the featured blogs in a couple of the tags. Keeping me busy today.

Rosemary

p.s This is for anybody else reading, it's not too late to join the challenge.

I have been using Blogger atm just to practice blogging, I think it can be hard to keep posting to a blog if you are not getting the visitors, it can be off putting.

Yes it can be disappointing. That's why joining the WordPress Challenge has been great! There are so many involved and there are plenty of new bloggers. Some have teamed up and are now blogging buddies.

I have seen the numbers increase and so have my fellow bloggers because of the challenge. New blogs being discovered that you may not have noticed before. Check it out and see for yourself.

Rosemary

The copyright for this content entitled "Starting A Blog - What are you waiting for?" has been specified by the contributor as:

This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.