7 Agonizing Steps to Writing Your First Blog Post

This is my first blog post. I have been so energized and excited about Through Her Practice that I hit the ground running! The Facebook page is active and growing, Instagram is up and running, the website is built and functioning, mostly (some minor questions about how to change font size and why the Goggle+ button is ginormous).

So I’m finally set and ready to write my first blog post. And then I realize a huge issue now looms. How the hell (should it be “heck” so as not to offend anyone?) do you write your first post???? The following describes the seven step process (as I experienced it) to writing your first post!

FIRST, you Google “What makes a good first blog post?” in several variations (“how to write” instead of “what makes a”, “best” instead of “good”). You get the idea.

SECOND, you realize that all the information out there is either a) the same information or b) wildly contradictory. Short vs. long, one picture vs. five, to emoticon or not to emoticon, bold vs. italics. Again, you get the idea. People have surprisingly strong feelings about these things…

THIRD, you decide it’s best to wait and be inspired. But then you end up JUDGING EVERY IDEA that comes to you as not good enough, telling yourself no way, no how, no good! All the while, you are screaming loudly inside your head, “Who the heck/hell do you think you are? What do you have to say that hasn’t already been said? And probably said better?? This is totally ridiculous! YOU are totally ridiculous!!”

The screaming insecurity leads to the FOURTH step, where you put off writing the post by messing with the website, re-surfing how to write a blog post, telling your kids not to be so loud so you can focus, figuring out how to put emoticons in a blog post (in case you decide to go that way), and checking Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, your email– over and over and over.

FIFTH, you decide to rationally evaluate the information you did find to create a sound approach. You do find a few common recommendations: a) Include the what, why, and who of the blog– what it is, why you are writing it, and who you are. b) Include pictures, for sure. c) A gazzilion words is too many– stick to between 200 and 2000.

At this point, you realize you have hit rocky waters. Before you were even ready to write the first post, of course you researched “How to start a blog?” and found that the Home page HAS to have the what and the why and that you HAD BETTER have a fabulous About page. So the main things you are supposed to include in the first post HAVE ALREADY BEEN WRITTEN and are on other pages. UGHHHH!!  Do you add them in the first post? Do you link people to the appropriate pages? If you add them in, you are looking at close to a gazzilion words, which is for sure too many. If you link people, will they even click and read the Home and About pages or will you just come off as a lazy writer?

SIXTH, for the sake of sanity, you make an executive decision. Readers will be linked to the what and why HERE and the who HERE with crossed fingers that they will click and read so they don’t think the whole blog is about your crazy ramblings. This allows you to accommodate the under a gazzilion words issue.

You also decide to add pictures. But you think pictures that would accurately represent this particular post (someone with writers block or maybe tearing their hair out) would be boring and cliché. So you opt for funny, or at least amusing, in your personal opinion. Which, in all honesty, could be a grave error…

SEVENTH, as you go live, YOU PRAY PEOPLE WILL COME BACK to your site. Because you really are passionate about what the blog represents.

So please, COME BACK! I truly am passionate about this blog and the issues it will address. Radical self-acceptance, and all that goes with it, is so vital to creating a truly happy, peaceful, and fulfilling life! And yet so many of us find this difficult (near impossible?) to achieve. We bombard ourselves with negative and down-right mean messages and we crush our souls in the process. I, for one, DON’T WANT TO LIVE LIKE THAT ANYMORE. I want to practice making radical self-acceptance my way of living and I hope to support others in doing the same.

Oh, and I promise the next post will NOT be about how to write your second blog post… Promise!

So that is why I’m here, finally, at The End of my first blog post (whew).  And I came in at 827 words— very nicely sitting somewhere in the middle :o)

Merken

Merken

Merken

Merken