31 Days to Build a Better Blog

I recently joined my very first paid forum community: Problogger.  It’s just $2 a month, so it’s cheap and worth checking out.  So far its been worth every penny (just the critiques forum alone is worth $2, if you ask me).  By being a paid member, one also gets 50% off Darren’s program 31 Days to Build a Better Blog or 31DBBB. 

Normally, I would never pay for one of these online be-a-better-blogger programs, but I read up on this one a little bit, and it’s a daily (or in my case, whenever I find time) process that should help with practical aspects of blog production.  My creative writing classes acclimated me to using books with prompts for creative writing so I figured that using a prompt guide for blogging wasn’t a bad idea, and for ten bucks, I figured “why not?”.

I wanted to let you all know I’m going to be trying this because you might see blogs that are out of my current format or style, and I don’t want to lose readers or make you think that good ole Beej is a-changin’.  I’m not; I’ll still be writing from the prompts on the same topics I always do.  I’m just giving something a shot.  I want to take my blog to the next level, and this might be a good way to do it.  It might not.  Who knows? 

I honestly don’t even know what all the program entails because I haven’t read all the way through the ebook.  It’s 94 pages long, and I’m only on day 2.  I’m taking it as it comes so that I don’t overthink what I read, say “but I already do that!” and ignore the advice.

Day 1 was writing an elevator pitch for my blog.  I wrote up a more robust About page.  It can be found in the title bar at the top of every page. 

Day 2 is a list post.  It can be found here: The Strong, The Weak, and the In-Between: Fall 2009’s TV Premieres.

From this point on, I won’t differentiate any 31DBBB posts from any others I write except that they will all be tagged as “31DBBB” for easy reference and documentation.