my friend attended Blog Out Loud a few weeks ago and she was inspired to finally start her blog. after choosing a name and going with the Blogger platform, she's all registered and ready to go. i asked her how her blog was going the other day and she told me flatly...nowhere. Aside from the standard template itself being a bit overwhelming (how the hell do you change the banner or widen the post window? more to come on that), she didn't know where to start from a writing perspective. Here are a few things we talked about..
1) Keep your blog set to private as you start. Only you can view your blog so have fun and start writing. When you are ready and feeling good about the content, change the setting to public.
2) Not sure how to find your focus for your blog? Let's say you want to blog about daily musings. Pick 1 thing that inspired you that day and share your story. What was the impact and how did you feel? Choose to make it personal or keep it more surface, just write it out. A few posts later you will slowly see your narrative shaping itself. And check out what the panelists from our 1st event had to say about this.
3) Gather imagery that relates to your posts that you have started writing. You'll start navigating toward certain images, colors and textures and can create your header. I think I am on my 7th or 8th header for loving. living. small. and I am about to completely redesign the logo. The fun thing about a blog is you can change it whenever you like. Sure, your readers get used to a certain header and title logo but it's ok to change it up. I recently did and asked my readers their opinion.
4) Start bookmarking your favorite blogs - I am sure you'll see a pattern. Set up your sidebar full of links that you love that both relate to the content of your blog and also things you personally love (hey, it's your blog, you can link to whatever you want) my blog is about small spaces but I link to paper goods. why? because I think these blogs are inspiring and full of great products that all small space dwellers can pull inspiration from + I enjoy checking them out. I also use my sidebar links when I am looking for fab inspiration for my own posts.
5) Build a photo library and inspire yourself. Screengrab (shift + command + 4 on a mac) tons of photos and save them in folders on your desktop with the link and credit info. You will use these 2 ways - either to compliment a finished post or inspiration for an unwritten post. I wrote this entire post without a photo and knew I wanted something colorful. I am a big fan of Alicia Bock and I had this photo saved that she took of the typewriter. As soon as I was done writing, I went straight for it since, to me, it represents writing and inspiration. There are times I have found a gorgeous image that I had to share so I wrote a post inspired by it.
Hope some of these ideas are helpful for you. It's blogging, it's fun and try to enjoy it! Let us know how you are doing - we'd love to hear from you!
Rebecca
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