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We all start somewhere. Why, I remember back in the day when I had to blog uphill both ways in the snow….

And it was deep snow.

History Lesson

I started this blog for GW because once upon a time a guild leader (who shall not be named) /ragequit his guild and banned people from the forums, thus cutting me off from pages of fan fiction and character stories that I worked hard on and naively stored only on the forum.

Lesson learned.

I kept a personal blog on livejournal, but it didn’t have the capability I wanted for a character-centric blog. Also, like myspace before it, people were leaving livejournal and going other places. So I followed.

If you’re a new blogger, check out the Newbie Blogger Initiative site. Mind the mess and watch where you step, it’s a new site and there are ads everywhere right now. I expect the site will be much prettier in weeks/months to come and as more and more “veteran bloggers” or “sponsors” make their way to the site, there will be more and more useful content to help people just starting out.

Advice from Belzan about blogging

Two pieces of advice today and prolly more down the road.

1. Find a site that meets your needs. WordPress was recommended to me by a friend, but there are lots and lots and lots of blog sites out there. I of course recommend WordPress, but Blogger, Xanga, and LiveJournal are all good places to start. The biggest question early on is: how serious are you? I’m a casual blogger and I use WordPress to host my site. You can generally do that for free, but you can also pay a small fee to host your own site. You get a lot more options that way. For now though, I recommend finding a site you like, posting, and tinkering with your options. If you’re really starting from scratch, do a Google Search. There are lots of quality how-to guides out there.

2. Share! Post! Comment! While I believe I write quality material from time to time, I wouldn’t have half the traffic or followers I do now if it weren’t for fellow bloggers. Hunter paved the road to my site in a big way back when GW2 was first announced. I stumbled upon his site and liked what he had to say, so I started following him and commenting. Soon he started following me. Then people started noticing he followed me and were like “cool, Hunter thinks this site is worth following, maybe I’ll check it out.”

Lather. Rinse. Repeat folks. Make connections and people will read your blog. Every time I find a blog I like I add it to my blogroll <–. I also write for Talk Tyria and people follow the breadcrumbs from that site to mine. The blogging community is just that–a community.

Why Blog?

ArenaNet’s take on the Guild Wars 2 community will change the status quo of Guild Wars fandom. Hundreds of fansites cropped up around Guild Wars covering every topic imaginable. With ANet’s official GW2 forum and official wiki, many of the fansites of old are likely to go the way of the dodo. A blog is a great way to offer your unique perspective on the game and on your interests. My interest is writing fan fiction and creating detailed character stories for roleplaying. And occasionally screaming from high atop a soapbox…. I write my blog because I feel like there are at least a few people out there who enjoy reading my stories. I write my blog because it is a place where I can write freely about what I want. I write my blog because I like to connect and communicate with others who are interested in the same things I am.

So feel free to start a blog and claim your slice of the internet. Share your interests. And explore other blogs. Sites like Newbie Blogger Initiative and events like GuildMag’s Blog Carnival will help you get started and help put eyeballs on your site. It’s up to you to make your blog interesting. Now there’s the challenge 🙂