Best of Blogging, Be Yourself

Since I do a lot of blogging, I thought I’d begin a series of posts about blogging.  If you look around the internet, you will find lots of bad blogs.  And of course there are many great blogs.  Those great blogs are fun to read because they are written by people who write about what interests them.  Being phony online doesn’t work for long.  Be yourself and share (with limits) information about your likes, travels, menu specialties, etc..  You’d be surprised how many people will be interested, even if your life seems mundane and ordinary to you.

Blogging can also be quite a learning experience.  Although I love gardening and sharing how my garden grows with readers, I am still learning as I go.  I recently began a blog about health and wellness related to kidney disease.  A few years ago I found out I had PKD and I want to share my journey as I attempt to get well.

You don’t need to be an experienced writer to start a blog.  I’ve learned a lot since I first began my Seashells by Millhill blog back in 2008.  The first posts I made were pretty horrendous, and I cringe when I re-read them.  Since then I’ve written at a couple of writing sites, Squidoo (now defunct) and Wizzley, where I learned to become a better writer.  I did a little stint with other bloggers on a shared blog site and wrote one day a week.  The bar was raised when I had to write alongside some very good writers.

It’s easy to find free images to use along with your stories.  There are many sites that contain huge varieties of pictures  for bloggers to use.  See a long list at Best Resources for Copyright Free Images.  One of my hobbies is photography, so I try to use my own photos as much as possible, but I don’t have personal pictures of everything I need.

As an older woman, with the family mostly grown and moved out, I no longer like to cook extravagant meals, so I don’t write about that.  Occasionally, I will share a recipe, but I don’t enjoy writing about food.  The internet is flooded with foodie blogs anyway.  My family is small, and I don’t have any grandchildren, so I don’t write about family.  I have no money, so I don’t travel.   I’m not a master gardener, but I try.  I do manage to find something to write about, and surprisingly enough, people read my blogs.  I’ve found that people and their interests are unpredictable, and as long as I write well, even if it seems like a boring post to me, it will interest someone.

Write well, and try to be grammatically correct.  Spelling help is taken care of by the computer (thank God), and write often.  Even if you don’t think your posts are up to par, experience will create a better writer in you.  In my next post about blogging I’ll go into more specific help with photos and WordPress options to make your pages look inviting.