You know that book you have in you? The one you keep telling yourself you’re going to write someday, when you have time? It might be a travelog about your RV travels. It might be a novel based on your family’s experience. It might be your life story. Whatever the nature of your book, the way to get started is to … get started.
During this pandemic with orders to #StayHome, you might just have the time to do it. Writing a whole book is daunting, and it’s a problem that you don’t get any feedback until it’s done. If you use a blog to do your writing, you don’t have to worry about the whole book, you can get started one blog post at a time. If you make the blog public, you can get other people to read it and leave you comments. If you don’t want anyone to read it until you’re ready, just make the blog private to you.
3 Steps to create a blog – for free
I hear you saying, “That sounds great, but I have no clue how to make a blog.” There are many ways, but I believe in easy and free, at least to start. Blogger.com is my goto website for making a blog, easy and free. All you need is a Google account.
- Go to Blogger.com and sign in with your Google account. If this is the first time you’ve ever done this, you will be asked what name you want to be shown as the author of your blog.
- Click “New Blog” button at the upper right. Note: if you have already created other blogs, you’ll need to click the down arrow next an existing blog name.
- Fill out the form for your blog. You’ll need a Title for your blog/book, a web address (if you accept the .blogspot.com ending, it is free), and a theme – I recommend the Simple theme. You can always change it later.
Once you’ve done those 3 things, just click the orange button, “Create blog!” And, you’re done, that’s all there is to making the blog. Now you have to start writing. At this point you should see an orange button at the top that reads, “New Post.” If you don’t see that, look for an orange + button at the bottom. One of those buttons is how you start writing.
Next your will see the post editor. Think of it like a blank piece of paper in a typewriter. You need to give the post a title, then you can just write to your heart’s content. When you’re done, click the orange button called “Publish” and you now have a blog with one post.
That’s all you need to get started writing. For lots more about how to use Blogger, see Episode 123 How do I make a Blog?