Blogs as a Learning Experience

I have never had any experience with Blogs or blogging before I created this page.  I have read a few blogs but only a few, so I have very little understanding of how they are structured or set up.  But I am fairly good at learning new computer programs, so I figured - "How hard can it be?"  Yeah, right! 

This has certainly been a learning experience!  Fortunately, I am also involved in a blog project for my Kingdom in the SCA.  (A Kingdom is similar to a regional branch of a organization; we just use medieval sounding names for things.)  This project is an attempt to spread information about our organization, its activities and news.  Its also a way to advertise the organization and recruit members.  Its called the Æthelmearc Gazette and can be found here.   So as a contributing and daily editor, I have gotten a crash course in blog creation and I am hoping it helps me with my own blog (which I started working on before being invited to help with the project...... good timing there!)

I started by going to the Internet and searching for things such as "best blogs" and "how to start a blog" as well as various other topics.  I try to use the wealth of information available on the Web to my advantage.  There is an incredible amount of information out there.  It is amazing, really, when you think about how quickly the information age has come upon us and how quickly the Internet has grown.  Its equally amazing how we used to be limited to finding all this great information by going to the library.  (I also appreciate how the Internet has aided my research into my family roots.)

After searching the Web and reading several sites' advice, I decided on Blogger because I came to understand it was fairly easy and commonly used by first-time bloggers.  Additionally, I discovered that, as I gain experience with blogs, I can "upgrade" and convert my blog to a WordPress blog at a later time.

So as I am trying to learn how to format the pages, set up the blog's appearance and post.....it has been a trial and error sort of thing.  I guess the best advice I can give to others....Don't be afraid to try it.  If you don't like what you post, you can delete it.  And you just have to try different things and look at other examples from the Web.