what are the benefits?

I think it's fun. I like having a venue for my thoughts and rants. I started in order to hopefully have a publicity tie-in for my novel, but I really started to enjoy it for its own sake.

What do I write about? Whatever I feel like. It would be too much work otherwise. Firearms, mathematics, SFF fandom, books, movies, funny conversations, interesting anecdotes, working in Hollywood, self-employment . . . whatever comes to mind. My last few posts have been about logarithmic graph paper, softball, math, The Avengers, the Aaron Swartz case, and the weather in Los Angeles.

Well I can give you the perspective of a new blogger; Friday will be my third blog post. So far what I see, and part of the reason I started blogging, the benefit is being able to network with authors, editors, and other people in the industry. So far, although I only have two posts, I have been able to talk to several authors already.

My blog is about writing. I have plans to talk about my writing process, do movie and book review, talk about the industry, do blog hops, and eventually give and receive guest blog spots.

My first post was about my writing goals and my plans for the blog, my second was a review of The Hobbit, and my next one is from part of a blog hop where I talk about one of my WIP.

I blog because it is fun to talk to the world and it's a great way to connect with possible future readers. If you feel you have something to say, then go for it. But there is no point to blogging if you have nothing to say and you don't plan on keeping up with it on a regular basis.

That's just my experience and opinions, though, so you should do anything that makes you comfortable.

At first, the best thing about blogging, for me, was the instant gratification. I wrote something and I could share it so my audience right away.

The best thing now is related to your second question, what do I blog about. When I started out, I just blogged about random musings that were on my mind. Then my life took an unexpected turn, as repressed memories of childhood abuse began to surface. Now I write about healing from childhood abuse. The best thing about blogging NOW is when people write me (usually privately) and tell me that my blog has helped them. Sometimes because they are also survivors and my blog helps them find the words for what they feel, and also from people who have not experienced abuse, but they say my blog helps educate them.

Getting started is easy if you use blogger or wordpress, the website will "walk" you through the steps.

Have fun!

Honestly? I used wanted to use my domain name.

But it's fun sharing my thoughts about different things with people. My first blog entry was just a poem. Since then I've done blog chains, more poetry, blogs about things I've learned over the years, and writing updates. I also blogged about the iPad Mini when it's release date was announced. I mostly talk about writing though.

I've been reading blogs for years, but just started mine last year. I'm up to fifty or so posts now. I write about whatever interests me. The blog also serves as a link to my two separate media, writing and book arts. I'd like it to be a platform eventually, but for right now it's just a mix of fun and philosophy.

I have kept counters off the site, so I don't know how many readers I actually have. It's saner that way.

I started my blog almost four years ago (it'll be four on February 12th). I started it because I wrote a book and I wanted to post it up somewhere for my friends to read. When I finished that story, I was writing another story and I wrote about the process of writing that--techniques I learned and stuff about my characters. Research. Randomness.

I blog mostly about writing, but there's a good dose of Downton Abbey on there and whatever else occurs to me. It's fun. I get to blow off steam or share things with the world and sometimes, once in a while, the world will respond. Of course, there is that connection with other bloggers and writers, which is great, and the platform factor in the back of my mind. Plus, one benefit is that I get to go back and read entries from three years ago and see what I thought about a particular writing issue or see how I felt during NaNoWriMo 2011, like a journal.

21stcenturygent said:

What are the benefits of having a blog?
What do you blog about?
How do you get started blogging (aka what was your first blogs about)?

Just curious because my mom insisted I should create a blog.

Click to expand...

1) You can ramble to noone and anyone at all. You can also make some new friends.

2) On my writing blog, I try to keep my blogging related to writing. Honestly, I don’t do very much with it

3) My first blog was, wow, well over a decade ago. Blogger wasn’t owned by Google yet, LJ would only let you make an account with invites, WordPress didn’t exist, and the trendy blogging software to install was Greymatter. And yes, I totally used Greymatter

Back then, if you didn’t want an ad-filled free site, you had to ask someone to host you. So you’d go up to someone’s personal site and they’d have a section marked Hosting where they would tell you if they hosted other people’s sites or not. Basically, you had to send them an email, show them you were a decent person, and prove you wouldn’t embarrass them with an ugly website. They usually linked to your site under a section named Network or Hosted, so that was nice. You could make a lot of friends back then with this sort of networking.

As you might expect, I had my first blog generously hosted on someone else’s domain. I was able to get my own domain and webspace a few years later, but I was always thankful for that nice girl from back then

Back then, I blogged a lot more, and it was usually about life in general. I spent a lot of time creating custom layouts for every version of my site... I had a lot more time back then. Nowadays, I’m a lazy person who is too tired to make a site look pretty when I get home from work. I cheat and use templates for the layouts, and I use WordPress.com instead hosting it on my own site (though I do that for my private blog).

The me from ten years ago would have sneered at the me of today for resorting to such measures.

Honestly though, blogging can be pretty fun. That’s why I started doing it and it’s why I still dabble in it occasionally.

1) It lets me have a place in the world where I can say things and people actually sorta kinda want to listen to it. Also, it's decent PR where people come to me rather than me having to go and shout things at them via social networking. It also lets me get my writing thoughts all into one place at least twice a week (monday+thursday).

2) I blog about writing and my experiences writing, mostly. Occasionally I'll go off on a little bit of a tangent, but it tends to be at least loosely tied to writing or books.

3) I think I just started yammering about my writing process. There was a pretty quick introduction post, but then after that I just launched into things. I talked about what I did, why it worked for me, and ways that it helped my deal with writing failures in the past.

It was pretty much just one big "this is who I am"-fest at the start. It's evolved slightly in the past few months, but it's still pretty much about me. I think blogs with a bit of a personal touch are the most fun to read, personally.

It's a lot of fun, give it a shot.

i've been through several blogs--the current one probably won't be my last. It's fun to write, but unless you get some interaction it can feel like talking to the walls. Like most things worth doing, it takes time and commitment.

Starting my blog was one of the steps I took to increase my online "presence" for my pen name. I honestly can't tell you whether or not my blog has helped with sales, but I do like knowing that if you google my (pen) name, it'll take you to my blog, where I've organized it so you can easily find lists of what I've written.

I also feel like while my books are a little more serious in tone, my blog gives me an opportunity to write in my voice. (Which is more casual and shows my true smartass nature. )