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How Do You Get a Blog?


During the month of November, I will be creating a book one blog post at a time.
Click Here to see the Table of Contents for this book and other chapters as they become available.

Chapter 1 - 

How Do You Get a Blog?


There are several types of software (platforms) that you could use to create a blog. 
Many people will strongly urge you to use Wordpress. However, Wordpress is not as beginner-friendly to use as Blogger.
In the beginning, it is more important that you feel comfortable and confident with the software or you won't use it.
So for a beginner, I strongly suggest setting up your first blog on Blogger. And that set up is what we will step through.


Are you ready to create your first Blogger blog?


Go to Blogger.com
If you don’t already have a Blogger account, sign up for your free one. Then sign into your Blogger account.


You will be taken to your “dashboard”. This is your home page on Blogger. If you create multiple blogs, this is where you can see them all.

Click on “Create a Blog”



You will type your blog name into 2 places on this screen. In the first line, type it as separate words if it is multiple words. I typed “Boomers on Blogger”. This is the title of the blog that people can read.

In the second line, type the blog name as one word in front of the “.blogspot.com”. This will be the URL address for your new blog. So your blog address will be:
http://yourblogname.blogspot .com



Choose the “Simple” template.
In later posts we will customize this template so it helps if we all start out with the same template.



There! That was all there was to creating your blog.




From here you can create your first post or just go see what your basis blog looks like.



Above is what your basic blog looks like. The title you see at the top of my example blog is the one I typed in at the first line near the beginning of this tutorial.

Go ahead and set up your blog using this tutorial.

In future posts throughout the month, I will be writing about how to create your first post, insert photos and customize your blog a bit.
By the end of this month, I will have the rough draft of a complete How-to Book for Creating Your Own Blog in a Weekend.

Can you please help me improve my book?

If there was anything unclear in this tutorial or anything that needed more explanation, please let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email. (My email address is at the top right of this page, below my photo.)
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Write Nonfiction in November


Challenge:
During the month of November, use blog posts to write a book by the end of the month.

Subject of the book:
Create your own blog as an electronic “home” for any future ventures online.

Why you would want to create an electronic home now rather than wait until later:
Several reasons:
  1. If you wish to write your own book and publish it on Kindle, having a blog to connect with your readers is a good idea.
  2. If you have ideas or expertise you would like to share, a blog is a good place to start.
  3. Also, in the online world, age is a good thing. The longer a site has been around and active, the more fondly search engines like Google look at the site.

Many people say that if you are really serious about creating an online business, you should create your blog using self-hosted Wordpress. Well, that's fine and good if you are ready to jump into the deep end of the pool and spend the money and time it takes to figure out Wordpress and the hosting site.

But what if you only want to wade ankle-deep into the water?
What if you're not ready to spend a lot of time understanding how to set up a Wordpress site?

A good way for someone who has never had a website or blog before is through Blogger.com.
Blogger has an especially easy to use setup. You can keep your blog super simple. Or you can jazz it up a bit and even get a custom website name (URL). Even that amount of customizing your new site is still easy to do and minimal cost.

I'll walk you through creating a simple blog.

Twelve Steps to Create Your Own Website in a Weekend

  1. Setting up your initial account. See #2.
  4. How to insert a picture.
  5. Where are your pictures stored?
  6. How to format your post to make your font larger, bold or different colors.
  7. How to format your post to catch your readers eye
  8. What is a Widget and How to add it to your blog.
  9. How to create a custom header (the banner at the top of the blog)
  10. How to get someone to inexpensively make a custom header for you.
  11. How to put a custom header into your blog
  12. How to customize the colors of your blog

These twelve steps will get you started with a blog that you can be proud to tell your friends about.

I will be posting these steps throughout this month.

Is there anything you think I should include in this list? Please leave a comment and let me know.

Thanks to Nina at http://writenonfictioninnovember.com/ for the idea to write a non-fiction book in the month of Novemeber.
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Life is Like a Painting




Life is like a painting. 
You start with an idea of where you are going. 
But life experiences color how you create your painting.


If you enjoyed this video and would like to see more like it, 
please click on the post title above and leave a comment saying "Hey! Liked it!"
Or something like that!
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How to Know What You Don't Know



Have you thought about starting a blog or maybe an online business?


But then you think:
I have no clue what’s involved,
where to start or
what I even need to know to do it.

The good news is... there are plenty of people who can tell you.

The bad news is... there are too many people who can tell you.

Where do you start?
Who do you trust?


Live where you want to
instead of where you have to.

Someone I admire is 
Natalie Sisson. 

Natalie is a New Zealand woman who has created an online business that she runs from her travels around the world.


While I don’t want to become a constant traveler like she is, I do want to have an online business that is not dependant on where I live.



By having an income that is not dependant on where I live, I create the opportunity to move closer to my family who live in an area of the country without a lot of jobs available.


I’m sure you understand the need to live in an area because either:

  •  that is where the jobs are or 
  • because you’re underwater on your house and can’t sell it to move.


Developing an online business that can be grown to replace a job’s income, can allow you…

…to move to where you want to live…
… instead of where you have to live.

That’s a pretty good reason for wanting to know more about starting an online business, don’t you think?



Natalie Sisson recently wrote a guide that is a good overview or summary of what is involved in setting up an online business.

She fills in the blanks.

After reading her guide, you will at least know “what you don’t know”,
you know!


Her book is called BYOB Guide.
And no, that doesn’t stand for Bring You Own Booze.
It stands for:
Build Your Online Business


I had the opportunity to read this book before it was published.

Natalie does a great job of explaining in a general, easy to understand way what you need to know about so you can think about starting your own online business.

After reading this book, you can begin to think about where and how you can start creating an online business for yourself. And you’ll have a better idea of what types of information you’ll need to dig deeper into.

Her book, BYOB: Build Your Online Business Guide, is well written and easy to read.
For $37 you get a pdf of her guide that you can read on your computer or iPad.
The guide (143 pages of awesome) includes templates, checklists, case studies and a resource section.
Click here to view more details

Natalie also has an audio version of her book that you can listen to in your car (while driving to that job you want to replace with your own business.)
The audio book is $10 and read by Natalie with her charming New Zealand accent.
Click here to view more details


Here is a video of Natalie talking about being a Suitcase Entrepreneur.
As I said earlier, you don't have to want to live out of a suitcase to use some of her great advice.
But if she can do this out of her suitcase, then you can do it out of your home, right?





Click here to view more details


I'm sharing these links with you because I’ve read the book myself and found it very helpful. If you click on the links above (affiliate links) to Natalie’s book or audio, I will receive a commission from her. If you would prefer to go directly to her site and not use my link, her site is http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/byob/
Either way, I think you’ll find her book very helpful.
And I hope that you’ll use my affiliate links.
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How to Read a Blog with Google Reader


(Can someone please leave a comment to let me know how the sound is on this video? I'm having some issues with my sound equipment. Just want to make sure the video sounds okay. Thanks.)

Do you read a number of blogs?
Or do you find blogs you'd like to read but forget where you found them?

If so, then you might just love Google Reader as much as I do.
I use Google Reader to collect all the new posts from all the blogs I like to read. Then they are all in one place where I can glance through them and see which ones catch my attention.

 I don't have to have a whole long list of bookmarks in my web browser. And I don't have to try remembering any URLs. I just go to one place and there are all my blogs I want to read. I can read the posts on the Google Reader page or I can click through and read it on the original blog.

If you're not familiar with Google Reader, take a look at the video.
If you have any questions about it, please leave a comment below this post.

PS. Once you've got Google Reader set up with some blogs, there are some great apps for the iPad that put all the blog posts into a magazine-style format for your reading enjoyment.
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Things That Get in the Way


As I listened to Dr Brene Brown talk on a video, I felt like she hit me up side the head!

She doesn’t research or talk about “how to”. Her theory is that we all know the answers to “how to”. We all know what we should do. It’s what gets in the way of what we know we should do that she researches and talks about.

Not knowing “how to” isn’t the problem. The problem is what we throw into our own way.

Wow!

So many times in my life, I’ve known what I should do but couldn’t do it at the time because…

     …the time wasn’t right.

     …I had to get something else in place first.

     …I had to make someone else happy first.

The list of “because” could go on and on.

I’m sure there are instances in your life where you could make the same kind of list. Maybe you’re in one of those moments right now.

Dr Brene Brown in an excerpt from her 2009 UP Experience talk said:

On the relationship between shame and perfectionism:
Perfectionism is not the same as healthy striving. Healthy striving is internally motivating, wanting to do the best you can.

Perfectionism is simply a defense mechanism that leads this thought process:
If I do it perfect, live perfect, look perfect, I can avoid or minimize feelings of judgment, shame and blame.

The thing about perfectionism that is so destructive and addictive is that you can’t avoid or minimize feelings of judgment, shame and blame. It’s part of the human experience.

So when you go out and you’re not so perfect, which is not achievable, your thought process is:
If I had just been more perfect. Next time I’ll be more perfect.

So if you really think about it. Perfectionism is not healthy striving but a way to help us from feeling “less than”.

Watch the full video. It’s 25 minutes long but I found it sooooo worth listening to.

Did listening to her give you food for thought?
What did it make you think about?

Leave me a comment with your thoughts. I’m curious if this affected anyone else the way it affected me.

Now I'm off to go read Dr Brene Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection.


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Older Women can be Trail Blazers




Hi!
I’m Ann from CreativeBoomer.com. And I’m glad you’re here.
If you’ve seen my other videos or read my blog before, thank you for coming back.

What Creative Boomer is…
Creative Boomer is a way to refocus and find our inner 20 year old again.
We were once trailblazers.
In our 20s and 30s growing up in the 60s and 70s and early 80s, we did things our mothers never did.


Mary or Rhoda?
You believed in yourself, you were Mary Richards from the Mary Tyler Moore show.

Tell me that you haven’t thought about it!

Tell me you haven’t stood in a crosswalk in a city in the middle of winter, and had that urge to grab your hat and throw it in the air!

I forget Mary and became Rhoda.
For the longest time, I would have been Rhoda. I would have been about to throw my hat, somebody bumped my elbow and the hat fumbled down. At some point in my adult life, I lost the Mary-style confidence in myself.

Well, I’ve changed.
I’ve gotten back to that trailblazer!
I have gotten back to that wonderful 20 year old woman who was ready to take on the world.

I'm Mary again.
If I stood in that crosswalk right now, that hat would go high up in the air and land back in my hand.
That’s how confident I am again about me.

To go forward, that’s how confident we each have to be about who we are.

You are a wonderful, brilliant, knowledgeable woman!
You just have to believe it again.

And that is what this website is about.
Helping us all get to the point where we are who we truly are.

The internet is a wonderful place for strong, trailblazing women...
To make an income...
Doing things that matter. 
And that’s what we’re going to do together.

I hope you join me and keep coming back. This is going to be a wonderful ride.
We are once again going to become the trailblazers we once were.
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