Blogger.com has been like coming up for air to a drowning man. For the last couple of years I have been struggling with writing: just not having a way to do it enough outside of my creative projects. With Blogger.com I have been liberated from the constraints of format and plot to write freely for the first time in years. Because I can just open a page and write without care on any subject I wish I don’t get so hung up about style and where things are going to go. What has happened is that this freedom has translated back into the projects I’m investing heart and soul into. Words and structure come more naturally. No more sweating away at the computer, or being too scared to even sit down and write. Blogging has made writing fun again.
Blogger.com is fantastically easy to use. Just create an account and go. You don’t need any knowledge of H.T.M.L. or other confusing jargon. If you do have this awareness you can do all sorts of things with it to customize your site, but it really isn’t needed. They supply you with all the tools you need, from templates for the site, formatting tools to decide how to send your words of wisdom out into the net, and even give you tips on how to get yourself listed on the major search engines.
They have links to sites which allow you to get listed in newsgroups, or let you become linked to other bloggers, you can even personalize links to the rest of your web presence. I have links to my store front, my web page and my wife’s web page on all my posts.
One thing to be aware of is that your generic address(in my case https://pippensqueak.blogspot.com) only leads to your most recent post. This means in order to send a link to a specific post you have to include the full html code for the page. Thus not only the title but the date of the archive month: ie. https://pippensqueak.blogspot.com/20005/05here-we-go-again.html) They have encoded a link to the specific page in the date/time stamp of the post. If there is a way to change that I have yet to figure it out(My html skills are limited to say the least) But as drawbacks go that’s nothing.
So none of you have an excuse: get out there and get blogging, speak your mind for all to hear, even if, like in my case, it’s only your wife who reads it.
p.s I found out about this service by going to Ashok Banker’s web site, ironic huh? I seem keep coming back to India to find out about everything web related.