My Blogging Story

Found this on My Sister's Blog and she got it from Chili. Drop by Chili's and let her know you posted yours.

How did you start blogging?
I had been interested in journaling for a long time but never kept up with it. One of the reasons for that was because I most often wrote with the intention of there being an audience but my audience was non existent for my paper-based journals. Then, at a Star Trek convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I met Wil wheaton and learned about blogs. His blog was also very inspiring.

This is the longest I have ever kept any sort of journal. In about three weeks, I will celebrate four years.

Did you intend to be a blog w/a big following? If so, how did you go about it?
As I said, I most often wrote as if I had an audience. Having a big following and getting lots of comments (hint hint) would be great and fuel my ego but, no, there was no specific intention. As such, I do not make any specific efforts to increase my readership.

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
Part of what I want to achieve is to create a personal history. That's why I create entries about starting jobs, and ending jobs, and where I live and where I'm going. There are times when I simply write about daily life but you can find most, if not all, of the major milestones and watershed moments in my life over the past four years.

Another goal of my blog is to let friends and family know what's going on in my life. I'm not the type of person who calls my mother and father on a weekly basis. I usually only call when I have something ask or tell them and day-to-day life doesn't usually make the cut. They still like to know that I'm alive and like to hear about what's going on in my life so they have become a primary audience.

Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?
I'm not sure if it has or not. If you take the work as a whole, you would probably detect several changes since the focus of my life seems to be constantly changing.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
As far as blogging goes, there wasn't much of a learning curve. I still wish I had some better knowledge of CSS and I would like to be able to do some fancier personalization of my blog template.

Do you make money with your blog?
Only if you want to make a donation.

Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?
They all know about it but I think my sister is the only one who is a regular reader, despite my intention of the blog being a place where they can keep up with what's going on in my life. Like my sister, my father used to read my blog but he has stopped. My MIL barely knows how to get online and my mother and brother could care less about reading an electronic journal. My wife doesn't want to know me that well ;-)

What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?
1. Blog for yourself. Don't do this just because you think someone else thinks you should.

2. Be careful what you post. If you even remotely think it could be controversial or interpreted as a personal attack or get you in some sort of trouble. save it as a draft and let it sit overnight.