I love reading blogs, I love keeping in contact with a cadre of other bloggers through twitter and Blog Azeroth, and best of all, I want you to ask yourself: Should I be a blogger?
For the month of May, in conjunction with a swarm of other bloggers across the MMO genre, I’ll be posting about the nuts and bolts of blogging, the good, the bad, and technical, to encourage you, and you, and yeah, you over there, to take your thoughts, stories, and screenshot folder, and share them through a blog.
I started my own blog in September 2009, somewhat as a whim, but primarily as an archive. What’s more fitting for a historian, right? You see, I had all these memories, experiences, notes, and other random stuff that kept getting posted, lost, and saved in random folders. I really wanted a way to organize my thoughts, my history with gaming in a place that wouldn’t be controlled by my guild associations or through the implosion of laptops.
Funnily enough, I’ve found that others have found some small kernel of value out of all that miscellaneous meanderings. Some people just seem to like, well, me (or my screenshots!) And through this process of sharing I’ve discovered a whole new world, or rather, a tiny segment of the larger gaming community that also shares my need to share and helps provide tips, advice, and musings about the game-worlds that they enjoy.
So this month, I open the curtain behind Jaded Alt, and take you on a micro-tour of the decisions that have gone into making my blog mine as well as some general advice (that I’d wish I’d had!) about starting and maintaining a blog and a web presence. If you have a specific question, leave a comment, or send me an e-mail. Take a moment to visit the whole host of gaming bloggers who will be providing advice and thoughts on blogging, and ask yourself:
Am I a blogger?
Special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for organizing the hordes, and Greg “Rackham” Moran of The Jedi Gambit for the lovely graphic!
Jaded Alt 
What a great post! I am an advocate for blogging and I think everyone should blog. What do you see, think, feel or experience that no one else does? I would love to hear your story.
I love to bake and cook and I thought about making a recipe blog but there are so so many cooking blogs out there. I asked myself, How can I make my voice ring louder then anyone else. What do I do, know, see, feel or experience that none of these other cookie blogs do? Gaming! Are there enough recipes and food in gaming that I could talk about it for more then a year? I played WoW at the time and there are over 600 vendor, drop and recipe food. I know that would be a great start to do but I would need to branch out to other games to keep the blog active for longer then a year.
What do you want to talk about, go and look at similar blogs and how they tell their story. How would you tell yours?
@Windsoar
This is probably the coolest introduction for the Newbie Blogger Initiative I’ve read so far (though I admit I am still catching up on it!)
@Eden
That sounds like a cool idea. I heard once about someone making a blog where they would make food based on in-game recipes. Though they did substitute certain ingredients that don’t exist in our world (like murloc eyes) or were too impractical to get (boar liver) with more common ones. It has been a long time ago and I unfortunately didn’t think about bookmarking it since I am not that much into cooking…
I am not sure how common that particular type of blogging is but regardless, I think you should go for it. It is a way to mix two great passions together after all. 🙂
As for recipes if you run out of in-game ones, something you could do (and even might make you stand out too, since it is one of your worries) is to make thematic ones. For example…. “Paladin Heavenly Pudding”. Or something along those lines.
Whatever you decide, good luck and all the best for you! 🙂