Newbie Blogger Initiative

Posts for the Newbie Blogger Initiative

Reluctant Blogger

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My First Blog

nbimmogames-666x271 This mornings blog post is inspired by a conversation I saw yesterday between two friends about the starting of a new blog.  There are many people that have this strong desire to start a blog, but for whatever reason lack the confidence to push them over the edge to actually putting a plan in motion.  Some people are gifted with a clear vision for what they want to write about, and a firm purpose to make it all happen.  That unfortunately is not most of us.  Most of us have this burning desire to write, but are also strapped with crippling self doubt.  While I might look like I know what I am doing, I am here to tell you that every single day is a struggle to keep making content.  While I have been doing this for six years now, and been doing the every day thing for two…  I still don’t really know what I am doing on a regular basis.  I take each new day as it comes and try and figure out exactly what I should be doing in the process.

This morning I want to tell you a story about another blog.  I started Tales of the Aggronaut in 2009 with a firm purpose, and a vision for what I wanted it to be.  The thing is..  I never would have gotten to that point had another blog not existed.  Back in 2005 I stared a blogspot blog because I had this overwhelming desire to write.  The problem being that I didn’t really know what to write about.  I mostly wrote about my misadventures, and a little bit about the ins and outs of our family.  But early on I knew there was a big part of my life that I just wasn’t talking about… because I felt like no one would want to hear about it.  So my first blog was ultimately a failure because it didn’t really represent my gaming.  Additionally Tales of the Aggronaut I feel was an initial failure because it failed to represent more than just my gaming hobby.  What finally ended up working…  eight years later…  was a blending of both.  Lots of gaming, but still the freedom to talk about whatever else happened to be happening to me.

Reluctant Blogger

My first blog was a blog that hardly anyone read, because I lacked the self confidence to talk about it publically.  It was very much a private journal that I let the occasional person know about.  The folks that did read it seemed to like it, and urged me to do more, but in the back of my head there was always this nagging voice.  “There is nothing you have to say that isn’t already being said… and  being said better.”  This is the voice you have to ignore to be able to keep blogging, because it never really goes away.  There is not a single day when I don’t hear it still.  Every time I hit the publish button I have to hold my breath and close my eyes and click it… because even after doing this for all these years I still struggle to defeat my inner doubt.  It would be amazing if I could tell you that it just magically goes away, but I can at least say that over time it lessens.  The voice has less sway over me than it once did, which I guess is a step in the right direction.

You might say to yourself that you have nothing to say, and that others are saying it better…  but the act of you saying it makes it special and unique.  I could read fifty blog posts on exactly the same subject and each and every one would have some nugget that the others did not.  While we might be espousing the same ideas… each of us is adding our own experience to that mix.  Right now, before you start down this journey you might believe that you don’t have a voice worth hearing but I am telling you that you do.  Be honest with yourself, and write about the things you want to write about…  and somewhere in between your voice will trickle to the surface.  Blogging is not about being controversial or brilliant, but instead about being honest and letting the world see who you really are and what think.  This act of sharing is precious, and makes whatever it is that you choose to share more than worthy of our attention.  We are this culmination of our emotions, experiences, actions and thoughts wrapped up together making anything you have to say on any subject uniquely nuanced.

Lets Get Started

As I wrote to the Wayward Bloggers a few days ago, this morning I am writing to the Reluctant Bloggers.    I am addressing the folks that want to start a blog but for whatever reason are being held back from doing so.  If you are watching the Newbie Blogger Initiative and feel that tiny tug trying to get you to start your own epic blog, I ask you to hop down off the fence you are sitting on and get started.  The Newbie Blogger Initiative is the perfect time to get things in motion because you have an entire community waiting her ready to give you that hand up.  There are an almost overwhelming number of ways to get started.  Most people start with either a WordPress.com or a Blogger.com and go from there.  Blogger is without a doubt the easiest way to get started, but WordPress will make transitioning to a self hosted site in the future less of a hassle.  In either case, the act of getting something started is the important thing.  If these seem “too real” for you to get your feet wet, then I suggest starting a blog on Anook.com and seeing how things work for you.

Some people are gifted with the ability to start writing quality content from day one.  In my permission to suck post from last year I talk about the fact that I was not one of those people.  I struggled for a long time to find my format and to find my voice.  My blog itself has gone through so many transitions from WoW Blog, Rift Blog, to ultimately becoming a fairly game agnostic blog about me as a person and my gaming habit.  The truth is that you should expect to hate the first dozen posts you make within a years time.  Like I said there are the occasional folks that can crank out amazing stuff, but I personally would be happy never to see the first several years worth of posts on this blog.  The awesome thing about being human beings is that we are able to change and to adapt, and expect your blog and your writing to do the same.  Just like learning to ride a bike was wobbly at first, your blog will be a bit wobbly and that is okay.  You are doing something that you are going to get better at, and we as a community will be here to help you.  Now you simply have to get started.

The Wayward Blogger

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Tyranny of a Blank Page

nbimmogames-666x271 Early in the week I had this idea of what I was going to write about for Storytime Saturday, and it was something good.  The problem is as Saturday has now happened I cannot for the life of me remember what it was that I wanted to write about.  Jaedia says this is why she keeps notes…  but I ultimately fail at doing that.  I have literally hundreds of “Untitled” Google documents with only a few sentences in them, so note taking is not exactly my strong suit.  Actually the problem isn’t the notes themselves but the organization.  Some people can neatly compartmentalize their lives into subjects and categories and then there are people like me that are shocked and amazed if anything goes as planned… because we are constantly rewriting that plan as we go along.  This is the point where I admit that I really have no prep work for my blog.

This is a curse and a blessing both depending on the day.  As I could not think of anything to write about this morning it was a curse.  The fact that I could start banging away on my keys and make something work as I went along…  is the blessing.  As writers we have to find whatever it is that works for us.  I’ve always tended to be one of those “rough outline” people, that I need a sketch of a roadmap…  but then prefer to fill in the details as I go allowing myself to be flexible and adjust to change as it happens.  The irony of this… is that I am pretty damned adaptable, but I still end up hating change in most forms.  I guess when you choose to life your life is a state of loosely organized chaos, you learn to really respect the parts of your life that you can commit to routine.  Those are the stable base that you build your ever changing life upon, so when one of those things changes you notice it.

The Wayward Blogger

One of the things I took special time to point out yesterday in all of my NBI 2015 announcements… was that we are also looking for what I termed the “Wayward Blogger”.  I guess this hits home for me especially because still deep within my core I am one of you.  I was a Wayward blogger for years, with weeks where I was extremely active, and month long pauses in activity.  If I could do this whole blogging daily thing naturally then I wouldn’t need to challenge myself by calling it the “Grand Experiment” and keeping track of each and every day  that goes by where I didn’t break the streak.  If you look through my blogs history you will find several six or seven month lapses in posting, and today during Storytime Saturday I guess I want to address those.  Not necessarily why the lapses happened but what my mental state was like during each.

The problem with a blog is when it starts to get popular you feel like you are forced to produce content.  The irony of doing the blogging every day thing, is that in many ways it is a gimmick.  When you are producing that much content people are generally forgiving on your off days.  Not every single post I make is meaningful or important, and some of them are going to flat out honestly suck.  I’ve talked about the “permission to suck” before, but it is even more than just this.  When you are blogging infrequently you feel like you have to write gold every single time you set your fingers to your keyboard.  This pressure is overwhelming sometimes and each day that passes gets internalized as another rung higher your subsequent post has to be to make up for the fact that it has been six months.

Permission to be Boring

I have no stats on this, but this is something I have heard from each and every other person that has gone dormant.  That they don’t blog because they feel like they simply don’t have anything to say that is worthy of that “triumphant return” post.  This is the instinct we have to figure out how to subvert if we are going to be happy bloggers.  Like the permission to suck when you are just starting out, you have to give yourself the permission to be boring on occasion.  Writing a “return” post is often like ripping off a band aid.  You need to get it over with quickly so you can get on with the normal business of writing posts.  The thing you have to realize is that for most readers your blog has been shuffled into a RSS Reader along with the rest of the people that they follow.  They will notice when you come back, but no one is actually there waiting every single day for that “epic post” you have built up in your head.

Ultimately if anyone is going to read a blog for any length of time, there is a transition that happens.  You stop caring so much about what is being written and begin to focus on the person behind the screen.  Those people, the ones that have transitioned to caring about you as a human being…  they will always be there when you return to welcome you with open arms.  The other folks who were only there when you were producing that thing they desired on that specific moment…  they will always be fickle and aren’t really worth the heartache and frustration.  You need to ask yourself what exactly do you want to write about and then focus on doing just that.  So many of us started our blogs as one thing, and then realized whatever that “one” thing was no longer sustainable.  We then transitioned into writing about the things that made us happy, and have kept going because of whatever that “thing” was.

I Am Proof

Essentially I offer myself as proof that you too can be a pillar of stability in the community.  I was quite possibly one of the least prolific bloggers, with some pretty massive absences.  The longest one that I can remember was the seven months that passed between the last blog post and me rededicating myself to doing the daily blogging experiment.  Each time I felt like a complete failure for letting the blog posts stop.  Each time I beat myself up for not being able to crank out content when I “wasn’t feeling it”.  Each time I could not get the desire that I should be writing something out of my head, and ultimately this small amount of madness lead me to put fingers to keyboard again and start writing.  Now is when I let you in on a little secret…  that inner doubt, the bit of you that tells you not to post.  That never actually goes away.  Most mornings I have to hold my breath and close my eyes… and press the publish button, because the inner voice inside me is constantly telling me that whatever I am doing simply isn’t good enough.

I was and still am in many ways a Wayward Blogger, I am just learning how to overcome those instincts and force myself to perform.  I don’t know what I am doing most days, and in truth I don’t even have a clue.  I just keep moving forward and adapting to whatever happens, coming up with things on the fly as I push forward.  If I can do this…  quite literally anyone can.  I am possibly the least qualified person to be doing what I am doing on a daily basis, yet I keep finding a way to make it happen.  You are significantly more talented than I am, and will go on and make more magic than I could ever dream of.  You simply have to push yourself to do it.  Prove it to yourself, prove it to the community… that you can be our next shining star.  The support is there, you just need to make it happen by finding what it is that you love talking about, and start writing.  My hope this Newbie Blogger Initiative is not so much that we get this massive crop of new bloggers, but that instead we find a way to rekindle the fires of bloggers that have long gone dormant.  If I can do this so can you.

Newbie Blogger Initiative 2015

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It’s That Time Again!

nbi-blog-logo Well folks it is once again May the First and as such time for us to begin the Newbie Blogger Initiative.  For those that are unfamiliar with this program, I thought I would take a few minutes this morning and talk about what exactly it is and what you can expect from it over the coming month.  May is essentially the month that bloggers set aside to helping create more bloggers.  In order to do what we do we need a thriving community to live in, and this is our version of a neighborhood block party.  I once referred to NBI as the BlizzCon of the gaming blogosphere, because really this is the event I look forward to each year.  It is exciting seeing all of the new faces filtered into our world, and seeing others rededicate themselves to creating more frequent content.  Others of us just enjoy helping folks out to get their start with whatever projects they are wanting to do.

For New Bloggers

If you have ever thought about creating a blog, a podcast, or a youtube channel this event is solely centered around you.  For years we have heard that “blogging” is dead but the fact that I have over five hundred active blogs in my feedly account would disagree.  Each time I go to read through my gaming blogs it is like drinking from a firehose.  I love this and I love the fact that there is so much creativity packed into this community.  However in order to keep this a vibrant and fresh community we keep needing to infuse it with some new blood and new ideas.  One of the most difficult parts about starting any new venture is getting an audience.  It can be frustrating to feel like you are writing into the void, and in part the Newbie Blogger Initiative is here to give you what you need most…  exposure.

During this month the gaming blogosphere turns its eyes to the Newbie Blogger Initiative and by choosing to start a blog during this month we are essentially hand delivering you readers.  Now of course starting the blog is the easy part, creating regular and creative content is the challenge.  Throughout the month veteran bloggers will be giving you tips and tricks that we have to help ease your transition.  This has always been a very blogging centric event, but we want to embrace all gaming content.  There have been quite the number of new podcasts spawned out of this event and the connections with other bloggers, as well as a few folks dipping their toes into video creation.  Essentially the sky is the limit on what you can do, but you have to start someplace and we are here to help.

For Veteran Bloggers

While all of this love is getting thrown around on the new bloggers, it is  really the Veteran bloggers that make up the backbone of this initiative.  We need you, your ideas and your wisdom.  Blogging is rough, and getting up and doing this on a daily basis means we need some tools to be able to lean on.  Each of you started out as a fledgling blogger at one point or another, and many of you got a massive boost by the Newbie Blogger Initiative in the past.  Now is the time for us to step up and help the next generation to become the awesome bloggers of tomorrow.  Many times these new bloggers just need someone to talk to and bounce their ideas off.  I personally am always open to new blogger queries and during the course of this event I will end up trying to make a personal connection with as many of the new folks as I can.

What we need more than anything however is for you to keep making awesome content.  Let the bloggers know what works for you, what you have figured out doesn’t work, and general ideas about how to make a blog successful.  I’ve talked about a lot of topics in the  past, and there are a few of them I end up dusting off almost every year.  More than anything we need you showing that this is an achievable goal, and that given dedication you can succeed.  Each of us has tricks that we use to keep us going, and at the end of the day someone starting this is going to need a big bag of tricks to lean on.  Channel your gifts in whatever direction you feel best be it with writing prompts, tutorials or lessons learned, but whatever they might be we need you to make this work.  There are already folks signed up on the forums waiting for us to find them, so I suggest you sign up as mentor today.

For Wayward Bloggers

Now especially I want to address a special kind of blogger this year that I might not have in the past.  Have you lost your way blogging, and somehow lost the will to put pen to paper and create new content?  While I am generally thought of as this prolific daily blogger, there are some pretty massive lapses in my blogging history.  I recently celebrated my second anniversary of making posts every single day…  but prior to starting that there was a seven month lag in my blog.  It is easy to “fall off the wagon” for lack of a better term.  Life gets in the way and your font of inspiration dries up…  then the longer you wait to make a post the more pressure you put yourself under about making said post.  We are our own worst enemies, and as the months tick you suddenly realize you are no longer really a blogger.

Newbie Blogger Initiative is also the perfect time of the year for you to get active once again.  Sometimes we start down a path that doesn’t end up as sustainable for our interests, and other times life just simply throws us a curve ball.  In any case I urge you to take this month to get back into blogging.  We are here and waiting to help you with whatever you might need to tweak on your blog to make it sustainable.  We are also waiting with a ready audience to consume your brand new and shiny content.  Each year we lose a number of bloggers to life, and I am hoping to help resurrect some of them and get them making content once more.  The Newbie Blogger Initiative is so much more than just a launch pad for new blogs.  It can be the vitalization of our community every single year, giving us a new perspective to carry us through the next year.  If you want to come back to blogging regularly, we are waiting for you.

#NBI2015

Blaugust is Coming

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A New Challenger Awaits

A bit over a year ago I embarked on what I called the “grand experiment” and idea to force myself to blog something new each and every day.  Since then I’ve awoken each morning, and gone through the process of writing a brand new post.  At this point I have over four hundred thirty of these posts and I don’t intend to stop the momentum any time soon.  There are so many days when doing this is a struggle, but I feel like I am committed to something larger than myself.  There are many days the fact that I have gone so long without breaking the chain is the only thing that gives me the drive to finish a post.  Even when I feel like I have no inspiration at all, the act of sitting down and working through my ritual seems to cause a post to materialize in front of me.

This past month my wife decided to take on the challenge of posting something every day and she has gone through some of the same struggles I did starting out.  There are so many days I felt like I didn’t really have anything worth posting, or that anyone would be interested in reading.  It turns out that oddly enough I have this group of readers that are interested in me, and not so much what I happen to be reading about.  But watching her go through this struggle gave me an idea.  The Newbie Blogger initiative has been amazing and produces some great writers, and gives us a month to focus on promoting this new talent.  What I am suggesting is that we follow this initiative up with a challenge of sorts, our own version of NaNoWriMo in a way.

The idea is rather simple.  During the month of August I challenge you my blogging peers to take up the mantle of daily posts.  To win the contest, you must post one new entry each day.  Now personally I tend to view staged posts that are written in batch as cheating, to make things easier on the varied schedules this is totally fair game.  There are several of you out there that already post regularly… and that is awesome.  I totally hope each and every one of you will enter into the challenge, but what I am hoping even more is to spur the folks who post maybe once a week into producing content more regularly.  The media has said that blogging is dead… and I want us to prove to the world that it is very much alive and breathing.  Additionally my intent is to try and advertise as many of the daily bloggers as I can through my own blog and social media outlets.

Bonus Round

The act of blogging every day is a truly awesome thing…  but I want more from you.  More or less I am targeting the gaming blogosphere with this concept.  We are all very comfortable writing a post about this game or that, and generally not so comfortable writing about ourselves.  One of the big things that came out of my “Grand Experiment” has been a willingness to share my life with you all.  Trust me it was not the easiest thing to do, but as a bonus I challenge you all to try and do the same.  I am talking baby steps here and not expecting folks to do anything like my “Factoid February” right away.  While I appreciate good gaming content, ultimately I care about the person behind the screen and not the persona you develop.

As an additional effort I challenge you all to start being more personal.  If something happens of note in your life, even if it is not gaming related… share it in blog post form.  This really serves two purposes.  Firstly you are letting your readers behind the scenes into your life, and showing that you have the same struggles everyone has.  Secondly writing from your own life is a good way to solve the whole writers block issue that will hit you around the second week.  Each of us leads a far more interesting life than we think, but I admit I was scared to share too much of myself.  I thought I would see everyone that was reading my blog run screaming into the night.  Turns out that apparently folks actually liked it, and I have noticed a slow and steady increase in my readership since I started trying to share more of myself in each days post.

A Little Help Along the Way

While August is still a few weeks out, I wanted to get the word out so folks could “psyche” themselves up for this.  I will not however be throwing you all to the wolves and expecting you to complete this journey alone.  Right now I am working on all sorts of “fodder” to help you spur your creative juices.  My intent is to have a huge post or two of blog prompts so that when you are struggling to find something you want to write about… you can cherry pick one of those and create brilliance.  Additionally while I am already doing this…  we will be in essence embarking on this mission together.  As a community we will help each other stay true to the mission.

One of the most awesome things about NaNoWriMo was the support I got from the other members of the twitter blogger community.  I would have never reached the goal if not for the support of awesome people like MMOGC and BlueKae just to name a couple.  So while I am already doing this and have done it for a year now…  we are still in this together.  When you resolve to writing each and every day… there is a point at which it just magically becomes easier.  I feel like at this point I could sit down and knock out a few paragraphs on almost any subject if needed…  and that is a pretty awesome thing.  I’ve found this also help me in the working world, as I am never afraid to tackle a project charter or writing a large block of copy.  If you endeavor to join this adventure, I promise there will be a hand to hold in the process.

The Prizes

I am still working on the details here, but I want there to be something cool from participating.  At the very least you will have earned the right to post an “I Survived Blaugust 2014” trophy on your blog sidebar, but I want there to be something more as well.  My plan is to enter everyone that participates in a drawing for something larger.  I just have not determined what exactly that “larger” is and some of that will be determined by just how many people participate.  Ultimately I will come up with something cool, and will be keeping folks updated as we get closer to the August 1st start date.  My hope is that I am giving more than enough warning to let folks prepare for the challenge.

[Edit]

I threw together a quick Anook community for the Blaugust event because I figured it would be the easiest way to coordinate things.  Please pop over and join the nook!

#Blaugust