Getting started with the blog

Some links to get you started

The first place to get started with this assignment is WordPress.com, where it is quite easy to set up an account and start blogging.  Basically, follow the instructions on the site.  And of course, use the space here to seek ask and answer questions, seek and provide help, etc.  But here are some tips to get you started:

• Poke around the site a bit– take a look at the features, the “our story,” the blog for WordPress.com, etc.  And once you set up an account, don’t be afraid to experiment a little.  You probably aren’t going to “break” anything.
• Once you set up an account, be sure to visit http://support.wordpress.com, which is the “Support” site for WordPress.  If you have a question and/or get stuck on how to do a particular thing, there’s a pretty good chance that there is an answer and step by step instructions on that thing on this site.  Specifically, I’d recommend the following parts of the site:
  • Getting Started (which is just that– instructions on getting started)
  • Post vs. Page, a distinction that will be important for you to understand since you will be writing both “posts” and “pages.”
  • Appearance, so you can customize what your blog space looks like.

Writing Your Blog: A Few Tips

The main reason I’m asking you to set up a WordPress blog is so that you have a place to post some of your writing projects for this class and also to poke around at the software/the world of blogging.  So you can do as little or as much with that aspect of blogging as you’d like.  But if you do want to learn a bit more about blogging, here’s a few tips:

• Read blogs. One of the most important tips for any writer is to read the kind of things you’re interested in writing– poems for poets, short stories or novels for short story or novel writers, history for history writers, whatever. The same is true with blogs.”How do I find blogs to read?” you ask? There are lots of ways, but here are a couple of ways to do searches:
  • Technorati’s Blog Finder
  • Blogged Directory
  • Google’s Blog Search
  • Or just do a normal search for something and add the word “blog”
• Link to the blogs you read. This is commonly called a “blogroll.” Basically, by linking to other blogs, you are associating yourself with other writers. And besides that, this is the sort of thing that will attract other people– these other writers– to read your blog, too.
• Use an RSS Feed Reader. For example, check out Google Reader. Also, check out this very short movie explaining how Google Reader works.
• Write clearly and briefly. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule since there are plenty of long blog posts out there. But generally, less is more.
• Write often. The more often you post to your blog, the more often you have something new for readers to enjoy.
• Say something your audience might be interested in. Okay, that’s easier to say than to do. But part of the art of any kind of writing– certainly blog writing– is to figure out how to write things that you and an audience of readers are interested in reading.

Here are some other sites with good tips, too (even though some of them are kind of old):

• “10 Tips for Writing the Living Web”
• “Ten tips for writing a blog post” (Actually, this is 11).
• “‘Dummies’ Tips on Writing a Good Blog”