On October 19, 2010, Nikki Kallio taught an excellent course on blogging basics at the Fox Valley Technical College in Neenah and I was there. By the end of her class, I had written my first post. Tonight, Nikki is once again teaching the class and will be using this blog as an example.
I initially used Colleen Sutherland, Storyteller to get the word out to children's librarians that I was heading west on a summer reading program tour. By e-mailing each library on my route, I was able to organize 19 performances in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon in June and July. Between performances, I visited national parks and forests, camping in a little Ozark tent. Each day I wrote about my travels, using my little HP notebook computer. I posted anywhere I could find Wi Fi, which usually meant public libraries or McDonalds. I traveled 8,290 miles and earned a $400 profit on the trip.
These days, I use the blog as a journal, writing about my adventures camping in Wisconsin's north woods, the happenings here at my home in Seymour, and bragging about my cute and brilliant seven year old grandson. A blog can be about anything.
I learned how to track my readers by country. This is my readership for the past week:
Each day, people around the world are paying attention to my adventures. I know that one of them is Helene in France and another is likely Nancy in the United Kingdom, but who are the others? Unless they leave comments, I don't know. Fatima in Pakistan was the last to write one.
Nikki will tell her students to post regularly if they want keep their readers. I've entered 354 posts since taking her class, missing only three days due to lack of Internet access.
A month ago, I started a second blog with Wade Peterson, Black Coffee Fiction (http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com) This time we are posting a new short story each week. Who knows where that will that lead.
So welcome, future bloggers. The world is before you. Have fun.
Colleen, the bloggers appreciated your kind message! Thank you so much -- you're an inspiration. There are some brand new blogs out there today...
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