Here I am, dipping my toes into the waters of the blogosphere.  I’ve had the idea of starting a blog for several years now.  Ever since I read a former colleague’s blog, I’ve toyed with the idea of having my own.  After all, I enjoy writing.  I have experiences I can share.  When I told Jan (the colleague, and I also consider her a friend) that I was thinking about starting my own blog, she encouraged me to do it.  And one time a few years ago my daughter told me she thought I should start a blog.  She had a specific topic that she thought I should center my blog around.  A niche, as it’s called in all the blogging advice I read.  But the idea of putting myself “out there” was daunting.  What awful things might happen to me out there in the world of the internet?  Did I really want to expose myself that way?

I think I’m over that now.  I mean, really what’s the worst that could happen?  Maybe no one will read my blog.  So what?  Maybe anyone that does read it will respond in a critical, hurtful way.  I’m sure that every blogger out there gets some rude comments, and they’re still plugging away, so I imagine I can live through whatever negativity comes my way, too.  I guess both of those worries are really fear of rejection.  But I have friends and family who love me.  So I’ll be okay.

Once I got past all that and decided yes, I’m going to do this thing, I started reading about starting a blog.  There is a wealth of advice out there.  It’s overwhelming!  One website boasted about how they explain everything about blogging in a way that a beginner can understand, yet much of what she had to offer was Greek to me!  I’m sure I need to educate myself, and I will strive to do that along the way, but I want to start this blog NOW.  Another “authority” said not to launch your blog until you had at least 5 posts written.  She said that way you would look “established”.  But who would I be trying to kid?  Everybody has to start with their first post.  It’s not like I’m promoting a business.  I think that’s what the majority of those giving advice assume.  Monetize was a word thrown around A LOT.  But I’m not doing this to make money.  For me it’s just a way to express myself and be part of a bigger community.  So I said to myself, “Oh, I’m just going to start.”

But wait!  What should I call my blog?  Oh, the agony of deciding on a blog name! I made a list of possibilities and tried them out on Big Eagle.  Most of them did not thrill him.  He finally did like one in particular, and I liked it, too, but I thought it was a little misleading.  It was a list of 3 things with “books” being the first one, and I was afraid people might think that was my emphasis.  I really didn’t want an emphasis (even though the advice says you need a niche).  Then I thought, “I want all the possible bits of my life to be included.”  That’s when I decided upon my blog name: All the Little Bits.  Great!  NOW I could get started.

I got my host account, and I got my domain from WordPress and was ready to blog.  But then I needed a theme.  O-M-G!  SOOOOOO many themes to choose from!  Which would be the best?  I installed and played with a few that I found attractive, but I just wasn’t sure.  So then I started googling to learn more about which themes are recommended.  I read about parent themes and child themes.  Did you know you can’t have a child theme without a parent theme, but you can have a parent theme without a child theme?  How can you be a parent if you don’t have a child, though?  Then there’s the consideration of whether to use a free theme vs a paid theme.  How do all of these bloggers DO it?

But finally, here I am.  Blogging.  I obviously don’t know a lot about what I’m doing, but I’m hoping I’ll learn as I go.  There were several of those advice places I visited that did say to just start and the rest would come later.  I sure hope they’re right.