September Equestrian Blog Hop Theme: Why did you start blogging? Write a post about why you were inspired to take the plunge and show the world your experience as an equestrian. What have you learned?
Bridle & Bone: Equestrian Blog Hop
Equestrian Bloggers Facebook Group
Why did you start blogging?
Blog history, with links, appears on my About page [About]. Short answer: I was being paid. Metaphysical answer: I was being paid, at the start. I continued on my own as an exercise. I keep going as my way of fight back against the void.
What have you learned?
At the end of last year, I had my fifth blogiversary [Five Years Ago Today]. At the time, I didn’t think I’d learned much. I hadn’t; not about producing text. My blogging voice hasn’t changed. I’ve been writing professionally since the late 80s, so I already knew about cranking out copy. Twenty inches of school board report on deadline will get you over writer’s block in a hurry.
What else?
In considering this blog hop, I decided that I have learned something: A blog is not just text.
Photo Skills
Loading photos from camera to computer. Uploading photos from computer to blog. Location scouting. Photos that look good in the camera don’t always look as good on the screen. Take extras. Cropping. Embracing digital (yeah, I’m that old). Resizing. Watermarks.
Graphic Design Skills
GIMP. Layout. Paragraph size. Use of white space. Headline fonts.
Social Media Skills
Posting to Facebook [Rodney’s Saga]. Understanding Twitter, or not [Another Aborted Twitter Adventure]. Instagram [rodneyssaga].
Still To Go
Photo post production: light levels, color balancing, other than for humorous effect [Color Cat]. SEO. Self hosting. Analytics.
Words of Encouragement
If you are new to blogging, or are considering a blog, don’t be intimidated. Starting a blog is extremely simple. The hardest parts are deciding on a name & picking a color scheme. As for posts, I will often throw up an unadorned wodge of text and call it a day. You can do all of the above, or none. It’s your blog, do what you want with it. If you’d like direct help, feel free to email me, rodneyssaga@gmail.com.
Blog away. Entertain me.
More to Read
Blog Hop list to appear here, soon. My posts are scheduled to publish automatically at 12:01 am. Once I’m up, I will add the required code. Come back & check out the rest of the hoppers.
Click the blue button to read more posts in the blog hop.
#EquestrianBlogHop #EquestrianBloggers
Previous Posts
Referral Saturday, Equestrian Bloggers Facebook Group
What Makes You, You? A Blog Hop.
My Best Class: Blog Hop Invitation
Loot. A Blog Hop.
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Today’s post will count as State of the Blog for September. [Previous SotB]
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 
“Starting a blog is extremely simple. The hardest parts are deciding on a name & picking a colour scheme” This was my biggest problem too!!
I was lucky that OTTBs and Oxers just came to me. Here’s to more learning ahead!
Thank you for visiting. It has been interesting to see the varied answers to the same question.