RE:View Local Dallas Blogging Seminar

Tuesday night, I had the pleasure of attending “The Life and Death of a Blog: How to Keep Your Blog Alive” a teaching seminar presented by author/blogger Ann Fields. Hosted by Terry Han and Brendan Alexander of KnowHow Dallas, the 90-minute event was held at the Meadows Conference Center, located on Live Oak Street, just a few blocks north of Deep Ellum.

Ann Fields started her writing career in 1996 by publishing her first romance novel. She has published four more romance novels since then, as well as a supernatural thriller “Fuller’s Curse”, and several collections of short stories, including “Lyrical Darkness”, “Voices from the Block”, and “A Legacy of African-American Literature”.

A group of about a dozen currently active bloggers and potential new bloggers attended the presentation facilitated by author/blogger Ann Fields, a member of the Writers Guild of Texas.

The setting at the beautiful, well-laid out High Plains Room of  the Meadows Conference Center proved to be ideal for our informal gathering and allowed for direct interaction between the attendees and the workshop presenter.

In her presentation, “The Life and Death of a Blog: How to Keep Your Blog Alive”, writer and blogger Ann Fields shared her experiences regarding getting into blogging and navigating the sometimes-confusing terrain blogosphere.

From there, instructor Fields introduced her audience to the world of blogging and discussed the reasons motivating people to blog and the costs involved. Blogs consist of pages and posts. Pages are static landing points communicating things the blogger wants to share with the audience. These include “about” pages and might include shopping cart pages or other topics. Posts fuel the blog, providing dynamic content.  Bloggers can share opinions, observations or opportunities with their audience.

As online journals, blogs are information sharing platforms that communicate, market, and provide a creative outlet for their owners. The biggest investments include time, self-discipline, variable financial costs, and emotions-particularly dealing with feedback from comments received by readers.

“It’s your blog. You can do what you want.”-Ann Fields

Fields went on to provide tips on creating a blog, stressing the importance of balancing blogging your passions with knowing your personal boundaries. She also stressed the effectiveness of accessorizing blogposts with photos, videos and links. From there, Fields provided insights on nurturing a blog once it’s launched and how to keep a blog alive. In addition to sharing her blogging experiences and insights, Fields provided attendees with online resources designed to help them develop their blogging know how.

Overall, the presentation was well done, organized, and engaging. Kudos to Ann and the KnowHow Dallas team.