My 10 Stages of Blogging

Michelle pondering her blog while aboard the famous Wisconsin Ducks

I read an article by Suzanne Vara on “The 10 Stages of New Bloggers” and thought while she wasn’t too far off track; my experience was a tish different.

Step 1 – Mention I want to start a blog to my closest friends to gauge facial expressions. Eyebrows up mean, “You? Want to blog?” Or a smile means “Sure, go ahead crazy lady and start a blog like a billion other people.”

Step 2 – Four months later mention the blog thing again to my friends to see if their first reaction still holds true. Meanwhile, I subscribe to relevant RSS feeds like mad hoping to become enlightened on blogging.

Step 3 – Friends are now asking me what my blog would be about. I have no idea. I just want a blog.

Step 4 – I realize I have absolutely no time to read all these blogs I subscribed to. So what makes me think people are going to read mine? Self-doubt sets in.

Step 5 – Faint ideas of what my blog should be like spring up based upon a song called “Bulletproof” by La Roux. I feel connected to it somehow. But I haven’t written anything down or even started a “blog topic list.” I figure I will wing it.

Step 6 – Six months later…a good friend puts me on the spot about a blog topic and I mumble something about the marketing Walgreens does at their cash registers. She seemed to buy it. I thought maybe I could do this after all.

Step 7 – Poke our web department guys about how to buy a domain name and start a blog; very nonchalantly though – like I was “asking for a friend.”

Step 8 – Decide that enough is enough and this thing isn’t going to start itself, so I call one of the web guys in my office on a pretense of actual work and force him to walk me though buying a domain and hosting on GoDaddy.com

Step 9 – Holy (insert favorite word here) WordPress!!!

Step 10 – Now I can write my first post. Ummmm…….