The Newbie Blogger Initiative

I am not “officially” participating in the NBI this year and it definitely has nothing to do with not being interested – this year is just bad timing for me with a whirlwind of work and family commitments I’ll barely get around to posting (but am trying!)

All that being said, I think it is a great initiative and even though I am not officially a part of the NBI, I’ll share my thoughts on blogging in case any of it is remotely helpful to anyone reading.

Brief history – this blog is actually pretty old – started way back in 2008. I started off writing around 20 posts a month – and that was a lot to keep up with. I had two extended breaks, one during a major health issue (lymphoma-scare) and one during a near divorce. I wasn’t very good at balancing my life between workaholism, gaming too much (progression raiding in WoW) – the balance was all off. So I quit blogging as I kept viewing blogging as adding to my inability to balance. This, in hindsight, was the wrong choice – I should have cut back on WoW and other things because I had a great deal of joy writing, reading, and thinking about games and gaming. I remember my first Vic-20 and C-64, and I programmed an asteroids type game on the tape drive.  I remember playing Star Control 2 on a 386-sx16 that I paid almost $4000 for (it was cutting edge!) I remember Sierra games at my friends house. I grew up in love with the digital playground and spent a lot of time there.

In short, it is a passion.

My lessons learned since 2008:

  • Write for you and your audience. Both will, and are allowed, to change
  • Don’t stress about who is and isn’t reading, and who is and isn’t commenting
  • Blogging is a community so try to read other blogs and support them. Usually just reading is enough! Comments are also much-loved by most bloggers (erm.. constructive comments and opinions *grin*) so if you read something you enjoyed let them know. Sometimes my comments are just that – “I enjoyed this article – thanks for writing it!” – that’s the best most bloggers get these days!
  • Being a professional writer isn’t important – trying to keep spelling and punctuation errors clean is. I often have to re-edit posts for spelling and punctuation.
  • Don’t edit out your posts after posting – except for the above! If your opinion changes after a nice debate, feel free to add something at the top or bottom – but leave the article intact. Remember, it was the one that started the conversation in the first place!
  • Have fun.

There are more but that is top of mind. My blogging style is conversational – I just write what I am thinking AS I am thinking it. I enjoy being free that way. I re read it a couple times, make minor edits, and then post (and then re-read and find those pesky spelling and punctuation errors…)

Welcome to Blognation. I hope you stay a while =)

Go check out the NBI and participate! I am going to make sure my calendar is cleared so I can be a better community blogger for next year. I am still going to go comment on some newbie sites =)

 

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