Taylor the Teacher

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It’s like I am standing at the edge of the pool trying to decide whether or not to jump in. Two years ago, I was afraid of the bathtub. (Started several blogs, but was paralyzed that someone would find out I’m a teacher who drinks wine and cusses.) Back then, the pool was out of the question.  Now I’m on the edge waiting for the precise right temperature to jump in. I pushed myself with this by buying hosting — the clock is ticking… 

And now I’m finding myself mired in technological details (for about 2 weeks!) and studiously trying to follow ALL THE ADVICE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE (movie guy voice here — you know the movie guy – I heard his voice this morning on the TV while I was brushing my teeth and thought, “that guy really gets around…” I picture him reading from scripts behind microphones all the live long day. He’s sweating like a factory worker trying to be everywhere in my life at once.)  

Between all the advice and technical manuals and Wordpress frustrations, I’ve spent nearly every waking moment working on the blog without doing any writing. And although I’m still obsessed with blogging, don’t get me wrong, all this technical hassle is starting to feel (ever so slightly) like a chore. Mainly because I’m feeling the drive to write slip away inside the Photoshop tools. (Fragment, I know. Like it that way.)  

This blogging thing is taking up so much of my mind, time, and energy that my husband is beginning to wonder if I’m okay. (Maybe there’s a syndrome. I always feel better when my crazy can be categorized.)   I’m reluctant to start something “half-assed” or make a mistake I’ll regret later, or show my bare-naked ass for the world. PLUS school starts TOMORROW. (This is the first time I have started school since I took up the new philosophy “I’m a human first and a teacher second.”)   

So, I have to make a choice and I choose, maybe to my peril and not lightly, to ignore Flamin Tiki’s advice about having 100 pages to start and ProBlogger’s advice about finding a niche.  I’m just going to have to start, and tweak as I go. Can’t afford a blogging coach, a design firm, or even Traffic Blazer. And as I mentioned — school is starting. So it’s now or never. If I let myself get cold feet now, I’ll still be searching through Greek theme code on Wordpress trying to change the color of that one top left line on the iGreen theme (really — a little help, please!?) and poring over hexadecimal colors at Christmas break. 

Besides, while I love getting information from people I can communicate with, the blogs I read when I’m just trying to chill are the personal ones. And reading about shit like Blogworld and Blogher makes me long for the early days of the summer when I just wanted to say something — when I didn’t know who Matt Cutts was, and I didn’t even have a technorati account.   

And that, o my brothers, was the reason I almost gave up early in the summer when I had lists of terms I didn’t understand like spidering, and pinging. (I do not hate them Sam I am.) 

And then I found Dooce. Dooce is the shit. Dooce is real. So, in spite of the advice that a personal blog can’t be successful, I had to decide why I was really doing this. It was only when I started worrying about the almighty Google that things were, in the words of Butthead, “starting to suck.”  

All that technical and marketing stuff is interesting, and I’ll keep working on those things. But that’s not why I came here.  Plus, I’m apparently I’m not as smart as I thought I was, and I’m clearly not going to learn all that “pre-launch” — meanwhile, in the interest of there being a launch, live or die, I’m just gonna have to start. 

I think I’m going to throw up. 

Or at least have some wine.