How did you come to blogging? For me it was reading a magazine article saying how a number of people were starting their own personal blogs. They didn’t have many followers, but it was easy and inexpensive to do. I was sold. I’ve always been a letter writer at heart, and my husband and I used to send weekly letters telling our families what we were doing. We stopped after our folks passed on, and I missed them.
In the meantime I had been making videos and DVDs with layered menus. I’m a visual thinker and enjoyed being able to present information visually, so blogging was a perfect match. I started with GoDaddy because the article mentioned it, then moved to my own site at Hostmonster because I wanted more control. What path did you take, and which hosting service do you use?
It was 9 years ago for me and was an evolution from building static personal web pages, which I had already been doing for several years.
How did you start building web pages?
wow! you made your own videos and dvd’s!!! your videos… what were they about? could you share them with us? i hope you do !!!
i worked with a computer for years. when i retired i couldn’t stand the thought of sitting at one for one more minute! lol. i wanted AWAY from all that!
then i finally got one. and i discovered ‘blogland.’ i loved it! a blog on everything on earth! so fascinating. whatever the subject… somebody had a blog about it!
i started timidly commenting. my most favoritist thing was minimalism. and when i googled that for blogs on it… the captain’s came up as one. so i started visiting and commenting on his. finally he said … don’t you think it’s time you had your own blog?
at first i was mortified that i had been commenting TOO much and it was a gentle put down. but then he emailed me and said he was serious. then… next thing i knew he had set one up with wordpress for me and because of what i had shared that bob had said once about “just get the peanut on the table. and everything will be okay.”
he had remembered that! and he said it was the perfect name. and of course it was!
because i think of bob every single time i see that peanut. the captain even came up with the picture on the blog! and now he’s my host. what a guy.
and now i see… i’ve written another dang book. right here on my monk’s site.
there’s no hope. there’s just no hope. SORRY!
It’s a long story. Years ago, after retirement, I saw an ad in the paper offering a summer class for kids to make a video that would be shown on PAC 8, our local public access TV channel. It looked interesting so I phoned the guy teaching it and volunteered to help. My first experience with video editing.
Then PAC 8 offered classes for kids to learn to make videos and I took all three, which was a hoot and a half. Two of my classes were with middle school kids, the other one was with 5th and 6th graders. In each class we had to create a story to be acted out, figure out who would play which role, etc. I can’t remember what exactly we learned in each of the classes, but I know we produced three corny videos which were aired. Fortunately most of my friends don’t watch PAC 8.
I liked doing it, so I bought a video camera and Adobe’s video suite and started making weekly videos of the animals at the local shelter. I did that for a few months, then decided it wasn’t an effective use of time, so for the next six years I made weekly musical slide shows of the animals that PAC 8 aired.
I also had volunteered to teach Religious Education at the local Unitarian Church and taped all of the kids’ projects — mostly public service — and at the end of the year I edited the various parts and figured out how to turn them into a DVD with menus. I gave the kids their own copies.
After that I started taping someone over at the Senior Center who did singalongs once a week at the adult day care. I edited the various songs and added the words at the right spot so viewers could sing along too if they wanted. PAC 8 ran these for four years, along with the animal shelter videos.
Andy and I also made a few Christmas DVDs with layered menus for our families. The whole thing was a great experience. It all happened over seven years ago, but if I can find one of the DVDs I’ll try to make a copy and send it to you.
Isn’t the internet great? I didn’t have my own PC until I was about to retire, then there was no way I was going to be without one. This was before Google, so I didn’t even use the internet much for a long time, but I knew I was going to figure out something interesting to do. I programmed scientific software when I was working, and I loved it.
Yay, computers, internet, and blogging!
My wife saw an ad for people to write on a site and get a share of google ads income.
I thought I would love to make an income writing worthwhile stuff (I still think this).
I made no income from that. Set up my own blog. Then it was about health in general. Narrowed it to focusing on self development; what I love most. (And the wisdom being that it is hard to build an audience for a big topic blog – unless you have multiple authors or can just spend all your time writing.)
Did Yaro’s course on blogging – making an income with 2 hours work a day sounded good to me (still does).
I still love blogging. Am thinking of checking out selling ebooks via kindle – payment is expected on that platform and the prices are very low so it is accessible to most. And the authors get much more than from traditional publishers, which is the way it should be.
Have thought about doing a mag on the apple newsstand but graphics aren’t really my thing, so it’s on the backburner for the moment.
Good luck! I think ebooks are a great invention. They just make sense. Let the readers choose for themselves what they want. I don’t know anything about the apple newsstand, but will have to see what it’s all about. I’m hopelessly curious about things.
I have had a variety of generic blog-sites and I’m still a generic doer…but I rather prefer to commenting on other blogs, writing a short summary on my f/book page daily.
Occasionally I get the bug and write a whole blog post but half the time, I can’t get something started. Probably because I’m not a daily/semi-daily blogger…
I think commenting on other people’s sites is blogging too. I appreciate your coming here.
wow! monk!
yes. if you can find one of the dvd’s i’d love to see a copy. i’d even send it back to you if you like. no problem there.
that’s wonderful! and how creative! a wonderful record for kaitlin of your creativity.
heck! Sammy and Montana deserve their VERY OWN video i’m sure!!! LOL.
I LOVE their picture. they are so adorable. sitting there posing. when you know they just want to CHOW DOWN!!! LOL.
Yes, the “puppies” are adorable. And they’ve been taught to wait until they’re told it’s all right to eat. It’s impressive, so people naturally assume they’re extremely well trained. That’s not quite true in all areas, which is one reason they’re so much fun.
“What brought you to blogging?”
To release my mind into digital world, and then, I feel good!
Isn’t it great to be able to talk to people all over the world? Again, thank you for coming by.
I was out of the corporate world sitting at home providing company and care to my late wife and had plenty of time on my hand. The computer was used for emails and browsing the net and was mostly idle. I was approached by some online businessmen to do some writing and editing work which I did for a while and made a lot of money too but got bored with the repetitive and foolish work that I was doing. One of them who liked my style of writing suggested that I start my own blog and the rest is history!
I’m glad they suggested it!