This will surely inspire a one two many (..I am betting ‘more!’) to resume on a vivacious journey in the world of blogging.

I love how you write! You really motivated me to start my own blog just that I don´t know how.
Awesome! You just made a new fan and reader! Keep it up!

thank you! and yeah, i didn’t really get to the ‘how-to’ part. some notes on that tomorrow. :)

Have you been hanging out in my head? Because this sounds suspiciously like a point by point repudiation of every single excuse I’ve made as to why I haven’t started an actual poet’s blog yet. I’ve spent the last month fending off friends who keep asking “When the hell are you going to start listening to Nike and just do it?” And I keep making excuses about needing to generate content first, and figuring out what I have to offer a potential readership, and blah blah blah blah blah. Give them another week or two and all those excuses will probably become paralyzing.

So, thanks for the kick in the pants. This was exactly what I needed to read.

Justine,
Nicely done. I just started my blog a couple of weeks ago and, as you observed, I’m still trying to find my voice. I want to write about my writing, but I feel drawn in a million different directions!

I also hope I’m not using it as yet another procrastination tool. I have plenty of those already. But I do get the whole “author’s platform” thing, and I understand that ANYTHING we do that can make more people aware of our writing is a good thing.

Thanks again. I look forward to part two tomorrow!

Terry

I’m a teenager and far, far, really far away from being a published author. Most people I know would say your too young to realize what you should and shouldn’t share with other people, let alone the denizens of the Internet. The only insight I bring to the world is insight I read/heard/stole from others.

My guess is that you would say, even though I’m a teen, I should start a blog becuase I’m growing, blossoming, experiencing, forming, and supposedly a blog will help me find the way I want to grow. Would you concur?

Alexander — You raise a really interesting question. I have sons who are still years away from even thinking about blogging, but I’m thinking about what I would tell them if they asked me the same question.

I think blogging and developing a responsive audience could be an excellent exercise in encouraging your writing skills — and anything that gets a teenager writing is a force of GOOD.

However, the Internet is like the Force — there’s a good side and a dark side. The dark side involves all kinds of nasty people who seek to take advantage of you or just insult you and mess up your day, which can be difficult enough for *adults* to handle.

You also have to remember that anything you put online stays online *forever* — any future teacher, college admissions person, employer, friend or potential girlfriend/boyfriend could potentially access it.

So if a teenager were to blog: what I would NOT do is any kind of personal diary. NO. NO. NO. Cut your arms off before you consider the thought. Absolutely do NOT hang your heart out on your electronic sleeve for you to cringe over and feel embarrassed about months or years later. Leave that to us adults. :)

No rants or anything even remotely negative. Stay away from the personal, period. Take on a fake name, develop an alterego — like developing a character for drama class. Keep yourself as anonymous as possible as far as the public is concerned. Choose an impersonal subject you’re passionate about — basketball, video games, the civil war, global warming, a social cause you feel strongly about — or assign yourself some kind of task that would make for interesting blogging (“I’m going to commit 25 random acts of kindness and blog about them and what happened” “I’m going to visit 10 different places around my hometown and blog about them” “I’m going to take up bodybuilding and learn everything I can about it” “I’m going to review 100 science fiction/fantasy movies”….you get the drift). Find an adult who would support your project to edit your posts before you publish them. And consider using Livejournal, which is easy, social and fun and also gives you the option of *locking* your entries so that you can *allow* who sees them. Then, when you’re comfortable and experienced online — or, more importantly, when your parents are comfortable that you’re comfortable online — you can go a little more public.

Remember…it’s the Force. Be like Luke. And remember that even he lost a hand. (I know, I know, there’s a bit too much amputation being mentioned in this response. But you get my general point.)

This is my blanket advice to anyone about starting a blog: If you’re thinking about doing it, do it.

Because the worst thing that can happen is that you stop. And the best thing—well, you can’t even imagine the best thing. Literally. You can’t. Because it doesn’t exist when you start writing.

And for anyone fussing over this or that—voice not being strong enough, not being “ready” in whatever way—I say “ha.” Also, go look at my archives from November of 2004, when I started.

That’s why I leave my shame up there. No lie, Cy.

Yeah. What Colleen said.

Thank you for your response Ms. Musk. It nicely aligns with the views and opinions that my parents have been teaching me.

Alexander, what would *you* like to do with a blog? And call me Justine.

Yeah, the procrastination thing. I wrestle with that too…There’s definitely a balance to strike between blogging and fiction-writing, and I can’t say I’ve found that yet. Then again, I have the sneaking suspicion that balance is overrated…There will simply be times in your life when your focus goes one way or the other. I like to think that blogging in many ways prepares and primes me for my fiction. It *has* had an impact on the kind of fiction I want to write, and it’s definitely honed my use of detail and ability to get to the point of the scene…Then again, I might just be conveniently delusional.

Of course, a favorite form of procrastination — and I am not proud of this — used to involve episodes of Judge Judy.

Blogging is better.

To clarify what I meant about my parents teachings was that they tell me about using good sense when posting things onto the Internet. I didn’t mean being the “good girl”, though I am a guy as the name Alexander would imply, and becoming a replica of my parents. For my blog or whatever writing I do I expect not to be so much of a “bad girl” but instead of writer of truths that have appeared to me. Something tells me that my blog, at least in its early stages, will be me interpreting, extrapolating, and sharing ideas and opinions that I have heard, read, and derived from the world around me.

I’m looking forward to your blog post about the actual technical details of starting a blog, Justine.

~Alexander Kucy

oh no, I didn’t mean for you to think I was asking a goodgirl/badgirl kind of question — truth is, I realized I’d been talking at you instead of actually asking you what it was you wanted to do.

i say go for it. protect yourself, of course, but just go for it. blog!