Before One/Week, I tried my hand at a few other blogs. I clearly knew I wanted to write something, and I wanted to do it in the open and creative blog community, but finding just what I wanted to write took me some time. When I finally settled on the idea of a blog chronicling a year of posts on things that matter to me, I felt I’d hit on the thing I could stick to. Then I reached out for some help. As I’ve mentioned before, I reached out to my blogging spirit guide Amanda Hirsch, and one of my questions for her was “What books do you recommend?” She didn’t have any to recommend and I recall replying that she should write one. I didn’t give up my search though, and I finally ordered – because I had to get my Amazon order total up to $25 to get the free shipping – a bubble gum pink paperback called The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie by Joelle Reeder and Katherine Scoleri. I was looking for something a little less than an all out WordPress masterpiece on cascading style sheets and something a little more than Blogging for Dummies. All in all, Blogging with Moxie fit the bill.
The authors, Joelle and Katherine (owners of Moxie Design Studios), lend a lot of personality to the book, so the writing is, well, estrogen friendly. It’s a little over the top, as if Carrie Bradshaw was the target audience, for example, “Chapter 1: Breaking into Blogging without Breaking a Nail”, or “Chapter 7: Dressing Up Your New Blog: I feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty” (with a section called Templates, The Slipdresses of Blogs). OK, ladies, whatever, I may be downing the occasional Sweet Chrysanthemum but I bite my nails and I wear t-shirts. Each chapter ended with a little “congratulate yourself with a [bubble bath/cosmo/frappe] that at first annoyed me but finally just amused me. (more…)
