✿ What would you like to blog about?
✿ Who would you like to blog with?
✿ Why are you interested in blogging? Why not anything else?
✿ What does a 'blog' mean to you – how would you define it?
✿ How are you going to name your blog? How about your entries? How are you going to name the author of your blog?
✿ What is the purpose of this blog going to be? Who is it for? Does 'purpose' or 'meaning' matter here, even? If so, how?
✿ What would you like people (including yourself) to take away from your blog posts?
✿ Will you look back?
✿ Does this blog treasure the mundane? How does it think about nothingness? What is worthy of being written about?
✿ Who are you in conversation with here? How do you converse with yourself? Who is the self you're speaking to?
✿ When is a blog post finished? When is the whole blog finished?
✿ Should you write in the open? Or will you only publish when you deem something 'finished'? Does 'finished' have a meaning here?
✿ What do you absolutely not want your blog to be like?
✿ When are you going to set aside time and space to blog? What are the conditions you need to blog?
✿ Does setting rules for yourself help you? What constraints do you want to set on your blog? What contexts should the blog operate in? Do you want it to be ephemeral or persisting? A specific log for a trip or for a summer, for example? Do you want to only write for it when at a certain location? To publish a minimum or maximum of words/photos/videos?
✿ How do you think about time and chronology with your blog? Is it going to be linear?
✿ How would you like to structure your blog? Would you like to tag, categorize, or filter your blog posts? Or, what structures do you not want to be constricted by?
✿ Should you have one blog for all your notes, or would you like to create several ones? What identities will you assume for each?
✿ Would you like to customize your blog? What kind of space or environment would you like your blog to take in?
✿ What should people feel before, while, and after reading?
✿ Is your blog an open door? How do you welcome people in? Do you expect people to frequent or come back?
✿ Who do you write for?
✿ Who will you try to be, as a writer? Which fragment of yourself would you like to present?
✿ Is your audience the people you know? For people you don't know? A mix of in-between?
✿ How do you want people to find your blog?
✿ What space, platform, and/or tools do you need for you to feel secure and safe in sharing the content of your choosing?
✿ Do you want people to engage with you? Do you want to check stats or metrics?
✿ Would you be comfortable with your friends talking to you about your blog? How should they bring it up?
✿ How do you want people to engage with your blog?
✿ How are you going to talk to your blog?
✿ Is the blog precious?
✿ How will you preserve and archive your blog? Will you mirror its contents anywhere?
(if you didn't attend the live session, a lot of these questions were discussed.. everyone has their own answers, experiences, and preferences. think of what you care for, the experience you'd like, and the environment you'd like to find yourself in.)
other lovely notes on writing and blogging:
Laurel Schwulst's 'To write, I first must world'
laurel treats blogs as 'notebooks', a way to frame blogs as less precious and more context-specific. laurel has a notebook that she only writes on using her e-ink typewriter, and another that is only used when in motion, for instance.
one of matt webb's collection of loose thoughts on writing
"To think you have to write.
If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking."
✿ Can you think about these as you begin blogging? Go! Go! ✿
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