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Beginner's Bulletin

Karen Miller

The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Aristotle

The New Year is always a good time for fresh, new beginnings. Beginner's Bulletin is the start of two new beginnings. Not only is it a new column for the WVU ezine, T-Zero, but it's also my first column. Margaret I Carr who previously wrote the Newbie News column kindly offered me the opportunity when I replied to her call for columnists in last October's WVU newsletter.

What better way to start a new column than by thinking about what the New Year means to you? To me the New Year always means new resolutions to exercise more, eat less, read more, spend less, and write more.

When I was a child the New Year always meant the beginning of a new diary. My older sister had a wonderful five-year diary with its own key that she kept on a ribbon under her pillow. She wrote in the diary every other day for many years. Of course, every entry was top secret and as well as locking it with the key she also had several hiding places. Every year I would want to keep a secret diary just like her. Unfortunately, I don't think my diary entries ever made it out of January. At that age I just didn't have enough ideas or opinions to fill a blank page.

When I was a little older my English teacher decided to make it compulsory for his class to keep a daily diary. At the tender age of thirteen I no longer wanted to be like my older sister and certainly had no wish to reveal my private thoughts to the rest of my classmates and risk eternal ridicule. The dairy that I had once been eager to keep was now a wretched chore. I was convinced that every kid in my class was leading an action-packed, fascinating life full of parties, discos, and foreign holidays. How then, could I write about my daily life when the most exciting it got was when granny came to Sunday afternoon tea and dropped her false teeth in the tray of salmon sandwiches? I was certain that no one wanted to hear about how I spent my Sundays sitting in my bedroom recording my favorite songs from BBC Radio One's Chart show on an old tape recorder given to me by my father. If they read that I'd be the laughing stock! What a shame I didn't realize that parties, discos and foreign holidays had little to do with my classmates either and they were doing exactly the same thing as me on a Sunday afternoon. Twenty years on I would love to read that diary, if only I had persisted. I'm sure I would cringe with embarrassment at my teenage writing, but I'm sure I would manage to smile too.

My English teacher must have unwittingly bestowed a phobia upon me, as since then, I've never been able to keep a dairy. That is until now - I ve discovered online web logs.

What is a web log? It's your own personal web page where you can make entries called blogs. It's exactly the same as keeping an electronic journal or diary online. It's easy to update your blogs from any online PC, and I now keep, not one, but two web logs.

Why do I keep an online web log? No, I haven't suddenly cultivated a life of parties, discos and foreign holidays or grown an ego the size of a planet. I keep one web log secret by using the private option offered by the host site and I simply don't tell friends or family the URL. This is the web log where I keep my personal blogs that I don't want to share. My other web log can be viewed at http://www.xanga.com/bespoke Here I blog about less personal issues which sometimes result in the beginning of a longer article.

When publishing your web log on the Internet remember it is available for anyone to access, and if you publish an email address sooner or later you will get email from readers. I'm sure you'll find most people are polite and courteous and contact you because they share the same interests and opinions, but remember you don't have to reply to any of these emails if you don't want to and you're certainly not obliged to meet anyone in person. Unfortunately, there are also some not very nice people out there who may also contact you. These people enjoy being nasty, so the best way to deal with them is to ignore them. If you do respond they will only reply with greater venom. I learnt this the hard way, which resulted in moving my web log to another site.

If you think blogging may be for you there are several good sites that offer the service for free. I like http://www.xanga.com, but you can also find others at

Blogger
BlogSpot
CitizenX
GrokSoup

If you need some inspiration for your blogs news headlines and quotes are often a good source. You may also find that reading blogs by other people will kick-start your imagination. If you do use a quote or idea from someone else's blog be sure to mention them and give a link back, so that readers can access the original blog for themselves.

If you re still stuck for something to write about try the sites below;

http://www.inspiredtojournal.com/index.html
http://www.journalwriters.com
http://www.wakeupwriting.com
http://www.creative-journal.com

If you do start blogging, a word of warning, it's very addictive. Although I'm happy to say, that for me, it has been a constructive addiction as I'm sure I wouldn't be writing this column now if I hadn't had some practice (however small) with my web log.

My private web log is going into its second year this month. It's interesting to look back at the last year. Even though I'm now writing as an adult I still cringe at some of my entries as thoughts and feelings change, but there are a few that make me smile too. If you start a web log of your own I hope you find yourself looking back and smiling at your own blogs this time next year. And if you don't like the idea of publishing your diary on the web there's always good old pen and paper.

So, why not start your journal by writing about what the New Year means to you?

I hope you've found my first Beginners Bulletin helpful. If you have any suggestions of what you would like to see here in the future you can email me.

A good beginning makes a good end.
English Proverb

Happy writing.