Overcoming first post stage fright
I'm not normally afflicted by writer's block. There's something about the first post on a new blog, however, that is far more imposing than a blank sheet of paper. This resistance in writing for an online audience, I now realize, is not writer's block but rather stage fright.
Such a fear is irrational, of course, for a new blog's audience can generally be counted on one's hand. Despite the impermanence of web content, however, terms such as "trackbacks" and "permalinks" remind bloggers that dormant posts may one day spring to life when BoingBoing-ed, Slashdotted, or del.icio.us-ly discovered.
As the modern equivalent of the unedited, unvarnished vanity press, blogging places squarely on the author all the blame for bad writing (or, more optimistically, the praise for brilliant turns of phrase).
In a future post, I'll lay out my modest plans for this small patch of Internet real estate. In the meantime, after a month of procrastinating, I'll simply press post, hop onto the stage, and have a blank blog no more.