Too often, I’ve found myself with a ton of things I want to write but no good place to put them. To fix this, I’ve decided to start a blog. This website is the result.

Having studied a wide range of blogs and personal websites in preparation for launching my own, there are a few guiding principles I plan to abide by. By sticking to them, I hope to carve out a corner of the internet worth visiting.

Keep it interesting.

Some people use blogs as a way to vent or share extremely personal, mundane details (that date sucked; that meal was good). While that stuff can be fun to read (was the date story hilarious? are you a bona fide chef?), very often it isn’t. If a blog is published publicly, the owner (presumably) intends for someone else to read it. If that’s the case, you shouldn’t make your content a chore to wade through.

I plan to jump around a lot on this blog. I’m a big fan of rants, and snarky observations, and policy soapbox speeches, but all these things are best in moderation. If every post is another profound life lesson or mean-spirited jab, things will get boring fast.

Publish regularly.

Why do so many people publicize blogs before they’ve written anything on them? Why do most blogs devolve into a series of posts devoted to saying “Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything here!” spaced further and further apart?

I’d like visitors to be able to come and stay awhile. I’d also like them to get enough out of this site that they’ll want to come back again.

Make it worthwhile.

Blogs aren’t exactly high-brow or life-changing (“blog” was a term of quite a lot of derision just a few years ago), but readers should still expect to take something away from a good post.

It could be a thought, a cool link, a feeling, or a book recommendation – but it should always be something. Empty words waste the time of all parties involved, and I’ll avoid them as I can.

I’ll keep these lessons in mind as things get underway. Thanks very much for reading.