Tag Archives: #blogging101

Back to School: Blogging 101

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ClassroomBlogging 101: Here we go!

I’m not completely new to blogging, but I want to do it better, so naturally–back to school. I’m a college professor. It’s in my nature!

I’ll be posting something every weekday for the next few weeks as I follow the challenges in WordPress’s Blogging 101 training. I’ll also be posting my “normal” posts a few times a week, which means there may be more than one post on a given day. If you don’t want to follow along, feel free to skip anything with the Blogging 101  ID in the name.

Today’s challenge: introduce myself and my blog. I already have an introductory post and an About Me page, but now is a good time to revisit my purpose for the blog. Here are the answers to some questions they’ve suggested I think about:

  • Why is this a public blog, rather than a personal journal? I think there are two reasons. One is that putting my journey toward being a published novelist out there to the world will keep me more accountable, pushing me to move forward in the face of distractions and challenges and all the other things we call life. The other is that, if when! I reach my goal of publication, I want to have a platform in place to communicate with the legions of passionate fans my work is sure to attract. Well, I can dream, anyway.
  • What topics will appear in the blog? It started out as all writing, all the time, but that gets boring. Now I try to branch out into other topics that reflect what’s going on around me. Sometimes I’ll tie these back into the subject of writing in a general way; sometimes not. For instance, in amongst the posts about preparing for NaNoWriMo next month are posts about saying goodbye to spring (The Last Tulip) and different ways of understanding thoughts (Thoughts About Thoughts), which included comments on a fantasy novel I just finished reading and an NPR podcast of Invisibilia.
  • Who would I like to connect with via my blog? At this point, anyone involved in writing or publishing. Beyond that, anyone who would like to know more about me or about my writing.
  • What would success look like for my blog a year from now? I can give some statistics: I’d love 100 followers and dozens of comments on each post. More than that, I’d love to get to know some people who visit regularly, so that we can develop a conversation around mutual encouragement and support. One of the everyday miracles of the modern age is our ability to build real, meaningful communities among people who are scattered around the world and never meet. That is what I want to have here.

So that’s me. How about you? Why do you blog? What would success look like for you (or, if you’re already there, what does success look like for you)? I already said I want comments, so go ahead. Let me hear from you!