So… You Want to Be a Blogger?

After I finished my last post on my one year anniversary of Zumba, I realized it was also my one year anniversary of.. Blogging. Realizing I had even less worthwhile expertise, knowledge and ability in blogging then I did in Zumba, I knew I just had to write about it. Since I’m an idiot, who writes, as compared to a “writer”, I begin with apologies to real “writers”. I know you’re out there, I’ve read your writing. I admire you and your writing. There is no advice for you here. Probably not even humor for you here, so “click on” lest your zeitgeist be offended.
My blogging began innocently enough. I went to a Zumba class, and came home and posted about it. After a bunch of likes and ha, ha, ha’s and a few, “you should write a blog”, I went to another Zumba class and wrote another post about it, and got some more, “you should write a blog”, so after some thought I did.
The reason I’m writing this blog, is that the experience of setting up, and figuring out the blogosphere has been one of the most mind numbing, confusing, unbelievable technological journeys of my life, so as an old, non techy person, I thought I’d pass on what I’ve learned.
1. Everyone will tell you its “easy”. They tell you the same thing about having a baby. They are liars. Its not. Its hard as hell. Find that IT Computer Expert Hacker Software Fix a Computer friend of yours who used to be a programmer at the NSA and taught all those machines to download all our cell phone stuff and spy on us. You know, the guy/gal who, with all their friends, are always showing off always talking in initials to each other. “Hey, hows the IPXN, going? “Aw, shit, I don’t know, my CXPY is just fried”. “Bahahaha, you can depend on that shitty hardware.” This goes on for half a page of posts until you feel like you flunked out of 3rd grade. Yeah, those guys/chicks. They can set up your blog page for you. You can’t. Also, there’s a gazillion choices of blogger places to choose from and once you get there, 4,795 different themes to pick out. Its mind numbing. Just mind numbing. Just on this wordpress.com site alone, they claim to be responsible for almost 20% of web traffic. Here’s a good article on 10 of the best free sites. http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/best-free-blogging-sites/#!GfeLA
2. But fear not, no one will actually read what you write. All that stuff you read about going viral, getting famous – yeah, right after the little old lady in Manhattan who played her Chinese fortune cookie numbers and won 5 million dollars and quit her job at the sewing factory and is moving to Paris with her lesbian lover, after buying her great grandchildren a new house. Yes, that happens, but not to you. Or me. Blogging is like disrobing in a crowded public place. Which, I agree, is frightening and humiliating. Until you realize everyone is walking by and not looking. Or caring. Or watching. Or even glancing.
3. Pay NO attention to your followers. Most of mine are people selling: diet schemes by mail; ways to get rich selling online ads, or how to sell diet schemes, or how to get rich doing nothing all day at home, or some of it really makes not sense at all “something or others”. WordPress also counts my entire Facebook friend count, since I post from Facebook. This does not require that anyone of my Facebook friends actually READS the blog. Based on some word of mouth feedback, and just some basic logical deduction, I’m guessing that my 743 followers listed by WordPress actually comes down to about 6 people who actually read my blog. Which is ok, but…. you get my drift.
4. So, think of blogging as a big, narcissistic diary, drawn on a fancy Louis the XVI Mirror, in cheap hooker lipstick, that everyone can read, but no one does. Which comes to think of it, if blogging actually gave us all a little humility, then maybe its a good thing after all.