My first post

Well, this is my first step on this path of pursuing success. After a year of feeling guilty for 'wasting' time on the computer while I should have been figuring out a new career path, I finally realized, "why fight myself? I can spend the same time on the computer, but use the time productively. A lot of people are not making money on the internet, but I'm smart, I have time, I'm willing to work hard and I'm not cocky enough to think that I already know what I'm doing."

So I have decided to create a blog, but where do I begin? I have lots of questions and no answers. What should it be about? How do I generate income? What is an RSS feed? Do I need one? Do I need to host the site myself or will a free host like blogger suffice? How will I find a niche to fill? How will I get people to come back and generate traffic? How do I register a domain? What pictures can I use?

And what should the focus of the blog be? I generated a long list of interests and things that I could write about, such as computer tips and tricks, cool links, videos, pictures, games, jokes, chess, procrastination, gadgets, guitar, personal development, rock climbing and personal development. The answer came to me when I thinking about something entirely unrelated:

This blog is about my journey to create a viable income through blogging.

Why be stingy? As I learn what works and what does not work, I can hopefully let others learn from my mistakes. That is one decision made.

My second decision was to start small, work hard, read as much as I can and get advice from anyone who has something useful to offer.

My third decision was to begin by hosting at blogger.com. That way, I can get started right away.

So this is really an experiment. My hypothesis is that I can generate a viable income through blogging. Am I correct? Specifically, I want to know how long it will take me to:

• learn the ins and outs of blogging;
• build up a blog that is worth sharing;
• build up an audience;
• generate an income; and
• generate a significant income.

Having never blogged, I've got a lot to learn. I spent a couple of days researching some of the basics so that I could create this page and this post. Some of the resources that I've found helpful so far are alltipandtricks.com, problogger.net and performancing.com.

I've got lots to learn. Let's see what I focus on tomorrow.

ML