Well, after walking around my neighborhood with a glass bottle of coca-cola I could not open due to the fact I did not have a bottle opener, I started thinking about how much free time I am going to have now that my Spring play is coming to a close. Then I remembered that my friend Mark came to school on Monday with a list of odd things he wanted to do as "Social Experiments", like categorizing your friends and doing "Yes Man" for a week. when I asked him why, it was because he wanted to branch out more, seeing as he is a generally quiet person.

So, I sarted thinking of Social Experiments I could try for myself, and Blogging seemed like a good one. I understand, many people don't care about blogs. I have quite a few jokes about blogs myself. I love to write, though, and I have apparently an oddly interesting life. So, I decided I might as well Start up a Blog for the world to see.

So, do any of you guys have any reccomendations on what to do with this? Any tips on how to create and maintain a successful blog?

My advise would be to write the blog for yourself first and foremost, its really just a journal that others can view and comment on. For content just write about anything that pops into your head or things you're thinking about, its nice to get things out by putting them on paper some times.

Of course... I dont really have a blog myself :whistling: but maybe thats helpful ^.^

Have a semi-consistent theme and writing style, so that potential readers remain interested in other posts once they've read the one that brought them there, and so that they're not jarred by the stylistic differences as they continue reading. It doesn't have to pigeonhole itself - a blog on cooking and recipes can still logically include entries on gardening or farmer's markets or even holiday traditions, for example. But it's far different if your game/movie review blog starts posting rants about local construction delays or the political machinations of the day.

As long as you are fine with probably no one reading it for a while go for it. Every time I considered starting up a blog, game review site, etc I got to the first sentence and then thought "[censored] it, no one is going to read it anyway" at which point I went and did something else.

If your going to use google adsense to try to make money. DON'T CLICK YOUR OWN LINKS. I made that mistake and lost my chance to get paid.

Going to agree with Mr.E - pick a topic and stick to it. If you want to get readers, you might not want to chronicle your daily life. Unless your life is very interesting, no one will want to read a blog about your daily activities. On the other hand, there might be interest in a blog about the latest developments in RPGs or something. I'd also stick to a semi-consistent update schedule if you want to appear professional or keep readers. Also make sure you don't write anything that you end up regretting. This goes both for content and execution.

I think theme is key. I used to eschew blogs but lately I've found myself following several and they all have strong themes which is what draws me to them. I actually started my own yesterday after a fair bit of prep-work. I felt a bit silly at first but since putting it up I've had a lot of fun.

Go for it. Worst case scenario is you don't like it or run out of ideas, and either axe or abandon it. Best case scenario, you'll have a lot of fun and draw in lots of readers over time.

I'll second that having some kind of theme is key.

It's also best to have something to show, or at least something to talk about in detail - whether that's games, art, etc. I started my blog to chart my development of an RPG ruleset & gameworld project, which meant I could always show off new art assets, planned features, character abilities, etc. Since that project ended, I've felt a little bit lost with my blog, but I've still got related things to post - I've made a bunch of posts about Skyrim, for example, and I still give myself little 3D projects. And I'm going to start a Daggerfall "let's play" in text & image format soon.

So while I started with quite a specific focus, I've since branched out into a bunch of other things, and still find myself with plenty of content to post within the same overall theme. I get a decent amount of visitors, if not nearly as many as I'd like. But then I hardly promote the blog at all.

Anyway, good luck if you choose to go ahead with it. Wouldn't mind a link if you do!

I blog, but not very consistently. Let's just say there's a reason why one of the post tags I use is "posts about why I should post more often."

That said, another good use for a blog would be to keep up with friends in fandom. Post about the latest relevant news, or start up discussion posts about this or that character, or what have you. A theme is definitely a good thing.

I agree with the other posters: unless you're just writing your blog for a relatively close audience (IE, people who know you in RL), I wouldn't blog about your daily life stuff. Unless you can make it http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/11/dogs-dont-understand-basic-concepts.html to a general audience, or something that would actually make a worthwhile post comes up. Like the time I saw a man walking down the sidewalk covered entirely in peanut butter. :blink: (...It was back when I in college. I assume that explains everything.)

All interesting advice, thank you guys so much. the plan for the blog was a humourus spin on my own daily life as a High-Schooler, because with the friends I have and the things that happen to me, life can be somewhat interesting. I may run it with some Warhammer 40000 army-building updates too, since I am a 40k fan. Just a general nerd-life theme. I imagine, though, that there will be times where nothing interesting is happening in my life, so blogging about it could be difficult. However, I think it could be fun to at least try.