Is a Blog Hard Slog?

When I decided to take my writing seriously, I needed some courage so I downed a shot of spirit and bit into a slice of reality. The sobering result was that I had to start somewhere. I had to ask myself; in a world of millions of talented journalists who are hard nosed, techno savvy, well connected and sport university journalism degrees, did I stand a chance? It is my dream to combine the two things I love most in life - travel and writing. So, where do I start?

In the beginning...

I was watching television one day when an advert appeared and a sweet looking young housewife hit the nail on the head. 'Blogging', she said. My ears pricked up. 'Blogging', she repeated. Then, she proceeded to demystify the concept for all the techno dodo's out there (myself included). That was my 'AHA' moment.

The drop off...

In the kiddie flick 'Finding Nemo' there is a scene where the little fish are warned by the older, wiser ones against swimming overthe edge of the continental shelf known in the deep as 'drop-off'. Gripped by the fear of the unknown, the little twits make sure they stop just short of the edge, quivering in their fins. So it is on terra firma, in our modern day existance. It is believed that if you are born post 1977, you fall just outside the technical 'drop-off' zone. So, statistically, you stand a greater chance of being able to become technically savvy than the poor sods born pre-1977 because your brain is still susceptible to embracing the possibility of change. With a partner in IT, I bounced all the ridiculously stupid questions off him. For a while I wandered aimlessly around the cyber wilderness trying to find my 'G'-spot (Google blogspot, that is)!

Let's go way back...

I cast my mind way back to the late nineties. I had just finished school and was travelling overseas for a gap year. Beyond 2000 was on the horizon and the future held me in the palm of its hand. Writing letters, receiving parcels from home and making costly phone calls were my only connection to home. Around the same time, two American teeny-boppers called Larry Page and Sergey Brin were hunched over their pc's in a garage working on creating the perfect Backrub (this was the name of the world's first search engine named after its ability to do back link analysis). And so Google evolved and was victorious Larry and Sergey.



I figured if they invented it, they must have the answers! So, I took a deep breath, tiptoed gingerly into my spare bedroom, turned on my pc and stared at my homepage which was, you guessed it Google. And so I began creating my very own blog. I am proud to say that it was a fantastic feeling setting up my blog for the first time. I still have a lot to learn, but where there's a will there's a way.

Blogging away...

It has been two years since I started my blog and Google has since made some great improvements. I now have a voice as a budding journalist and I can be found, networked with and followed. I am now able to change my 'skin' which is the techie term for redecorating my virtual room, I can earn money by linking to the right sites, and the list goes on. Bottom line, it's no hard slog creating your own blog. The world is your oyster. If you push yourself to go beyond the 'drop off', challenge yourself to explore a little further; you may be pleasantly surprised.

Keep at it...

Rule of thumb for blogging is keep it updated. If you don't, you will get forgotten, seem outdated and - gasp! - irrelevant. Now we wouldn't want that now, would we?