Category: About

A Wild Blog Appears…

On By Kristina Van HooseIn About, Blogging1015 Comments

I am an indecisive person. Truth is, I haven’t been posting much to my blog except for the Brigit’s Flame entries because I find myself struggling with what to post. Reading about creating a blog seems to always point in the direction of niche blogging. What’s my niche though?

It can’t just be writing. Only other writers will ever find that helpful. I want to spread my net further than that. I know the end goal is to hopefully meet people and find people who enjoy reading what I write so that I can become a published author. How does one get there though?

I feel like I am a boring person and people won’t be interested in what I have to write. And honestly, I can’t picture myself picking a niche and writing ONLY about that for the rest of my life. That doesn’t seem fun.

I’m a story teller. I’m a writer. I love fiction and stories about people and their experiences. Is that enough for people to want to come here though? There is no “How-to” article or list that I can really write for that.

How do I explain what the purpose of this place is if all it is is storytelling? Is it entertainment? What if I’m not entertaining? What if you read my posts and decide it’s not worth sticking around?

We all want to make connections. It’s human nature. However, there’s always that pressure of finding common ground and connecting. As a super shy person, it is difficult to overcome that. However, I do want to connect to others.

I don’t even know.

I do know that I want to become a better writer and get used to having my work out there in the unknown land of the published word. I want to get used to critiques and feedback, but I want to be surrounded by more than just writers. Don’t get me wrong. I love meeting other writers; they have insight I don’t always have. However, I want to meet more than just writers too, or I worry we may run out of things to say!

So, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve discovered a wild blog struggling to discover what it is. Coincidentally, it’s written by a woman trying to figure out who she is too and what she wants to do with her life. I can’t guarantee it’ll be entertaining, but I guess life isn’t always like that either. I can’t guarantee that there’s even a point to it all in the end; all I know is that it exists because I exist.

Titles and Taglines

On By Kristina Van HooseIn About6 Comments

It’s day 2 of blogging 101. Today’s topic is titles and taglines.

My current title is obviously my name. There’s no changing that.

My tagline is currently “Embrace Imagination”. I thought it went well with my desire to be a published author and with the fact that I was sharing a bunch of my personal stories. It goes with my about page and everything too. Originally I always was going to try to make my journal funny and maybe even draw cartoons to go along with it, but I see other people have done that so I’m not sure I want to anymore. The whole point was to try to show that even the most mundane things can be interesting if you let them and that my site could be a place to go to when you are bored and need something positive to do.

I’m not sure what else would fit. However, I’m also not sure if it still does fit if I’m blogging about anything. I wish day 2 was more about focusing your blog.

What do you think?

Do blogs need to be about just one thing or can they be about more than one thing?

What suggestions do you have for me?

An Introduction to Myself for Blogging 101

On By Kristina Van HooseIn About3 Comments

My name is Cristina, and I recently decided to participate in Blogging 101. I started blogging back in 2004 as a means to vent about physics of all things. That class was difficult. The summer of 2002 I discovered that I loved to write and tell stories. I’ve been writing and blogging off and on since then.

At some point I realized that I really wanted to become a published author someday. I think it would be awesome to share my stories with people other than my friends and family. I learned that a good thing to have before you get published is an author’s platform, which is what I hope this blog can help to build. Even if I never publish anything, I can still publish stories via the blog and possibly connect with people. It might even be more enjoyable since there is the ability to post comments and have a conversation with the people reading.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what exactly to blog about that would be interesting, but I’m hoping I’ll figure it out with some practice. I already have some ideas ready to write out, but I’m not sure how that’ll work out now that I have these homework assignments from Blogging 101.

I have a few posts already, and it seems that my focus at the moment is lessons I’ve learned and things I’ve experienced. There will also be short stories that I post too.

Anyone who enjoys positive stories and an optimistic view mixed with some creativity should enjoy my blog. Writers and readers should also enjoy it. It’s my goal to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a whole year while steadily growing a following with people I can interact with on my blog and theirs.

I hope this helps you get a sense of who I am and why I’m here. It’s nice to meet you.

Your Turn

If you’re in blogging 101, what made you decide to sign up? What is your biggest worry or concern about blogging?