How to Launch a Blog the Hard Way in 20 Easy Steps
2009 January 18
- Delude yourself into thinking that you ‘used to blog’, and how hard could it be to start again anyway?
- Launch a quick and dirty blog on the spur of a moment, make 3 updates and then don’t blog anymore. Repeat this every 6-12 months.
- Have lots of good ideas for blog posts in the shower. Write down cryptic notes on 10% of them that you can’t make heads or tails of anymore after 3 days. Keep them around in Google Docs ‘just in case’, but tell yourself that you’re not a compulsive hoarder.
- Install multiple blogging apps on your iPhone and pretend you’re an urban hipster, because if you really wanted to, you could blog anything from anywhere while you’re out and about. Never post anything from anywhere with them.
- Refuse to move to WordPress, because the Movable Type guys seemed so cool in 2002 and WordPress has ugly PHP code embedded in its templates. Nevermind that WordPress has a thousand times more themes available and much more community support these days.
- Finally cave and relent to the crushing onslaught of WordPress’ success. Look at the pretty themes…
- Resolve not to launch the site until everything is just perfect. Look at dozens of plugins that have nothing to do with getting a successful blog off the ground.
- Put up a test site at your main URL, link that from a bunch of social networking sites and then don’t do anything with it for weeks, thus showing the few people who do find their way to your site what a flake you are.
- Do all this using your old syndication feed, so your handful of subscribers see weird test posts and some Delicious links, but no actual original content.
- Watch a lot of TV. See what the cool people in SF on Twitter are up to.
- Be marginally witty in your Twitter and Facebook updates. After all, that’s pretty much the same as blogging, right?
- Over the course of months, bookmark dozens of cool WordPress themes that you like (out of hundreds you didn’t) instead of finally picking one and thinking about blog posts to write. Do this until even your friends comment on how many themes you seem to be bookmarking on Delicious.
- Make big plans to launch not just one, but several blogs during a 2 week holiday break from work, make a cryptic Twitter post about it and then somehow waste away the entire time by goofing around online and go back to work in 2009 empty handed.
- Lock yourself into the apartment for a long weekend and resolve to finally launch the blog. Concoct an overly honest and halfway funny post to make up for no real content.
- Finally put those pictures of polar bears you’ve been collecting to good use by posting a cute one (because posting a cat picture would have immediately stereotyped you and using polar bears tells people that you care about the environment):
- Hit Publish. Feel good about blogging again.
- Resolve that this time, things are going to be different and you’re going to blog all the time and it will be totally awesome (this step is crucial).
- Leave people wondering how much of this is actually true (all of it). Pat yourself on your back and tell yourself that honestly and transperancy must somehow count for something.
- Relish in your accomplishment and immediately start looking at other themes for a redesign.
- Obsess over your Google Analytics stats.
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