Thoughts.com

Once you get all of the registration stuff out of the way, it's time to start a blog. After all, that's why you're on Thoughts.com, right? I guess you may have joined just to read other people's blogs, but where's the fun in that? Don't be so shy. Share your thoughts with the world. Unless your thoughts are extremely racist or something like that, in which case maybe you shouldn't share. I'm sure your thoughts are nothing like that, though. You seem like a nice person.

So how do you get started? Well, everyone has their own way of doing things, and it depends on what kind of writing you want to do as well as your intended audience. Some people want to just open the blog and start immediately spewing onto the screen, not worrying about where the story is going. Other people like a more structured approach and want to plan out exactly what they want to say first. If you're not sure what to write, brainstorming is a good idea.

choosing a topic

Picking a topic can be difficult. You can always get ideas by browsing other people's blogs on Thoughts and see what they are writing about. It might help you decide what you want to write about and it might help you decide what you definitely do not want to write about. Think of a topic that means a lot to you. Write about your interests or life experiences. Or maybe you want to write about current events and your thoughts on them.

categories

Once you have chosen a topic, you may want to create a category for it. You can create different categories for your blogs to make it easier to find blogs you have written about similar topics. This is a particularly good idea if you post a lot of blogs. For example, if you often blog about relationships, religion and politics, you may want to create categories for all three. If you want to create a category, click on "Manage Categories" under the "My Blog" heading. Then create category names and save them to your category list.

After doing this, you can save any blog entry you post by associating it with one of the categories in the list.

add media

Once you have the text for your blog written you might think you're done. Not necessarily. One of the good things about Thoughts.com is that you can embed photos, podcasts and videos. A funny or informative video can nicely supplement the written portion of your blog. If there is a certain song that reminds you of your topic, or something that is related in theme or mood you may want to include that.

To embed an image in your blog entry, click on the "insert image" button in the toolbar. A pop-up window will then appear with thumbnails of the photos saved to your Thoughts account. You can embed any of those photos by clicking on them. To upload a photo from your computer, click on the "browse" button, select the image from your computer, and then click "upload." The image will then be embedded in your blog in its original size. To re-size the image, click on the image, grab one of the edges, and drag it to its desired size.

adding tags

Effectively tagging your blog posts helps you gain exposure. Tags help other people find your blog by giving them keywords for which to search. To make your blog post easier to find, put keywords appropriate to your post in the "tags" box below your post. For example, if you put "relationships" as a tag, then people searching for blogs about relationships should find yours.

Once you are done writing the blog, filling in all of the appropriate fields, and are ready to post, simply click the "Post Now" button. If you want to save your work and come back to it later, click the "Save Draft" button. If you want the blog to be posted later at a specific time, click the "Post Later" button.

Once your blog is posted, sit back and wait for your readers to check it out and comment. Or better yet, go outside and do something. It's nice outside and you've been indoors writing. You don't want to be cooped up all day, do you?