I'm thinking of starting up a blog myself. The peer pressure is too great! Any advice on getting started? Would appreciate anything.

Surprising as it may seem, in my opinion the first step is not to "run over to Blogger and sign up". The first and most important I think is to choose a name for your blog.

Although it seems like such a small task, it's actually the hardest part. Once you choose your name, you're pretty much stuck with it for your blogging career. Also, in a number of ways your blog's name helps to define what your blog will be about.

Another thing that will help with the identity of yoru site is the tagline -- which should expand on or explain your blog's name or your blog's general theme.

I chose a quote from George Opeen's "Of Being Numerous" -- which also serves as the _title_ of my blog because I dig Oppen and share his outlook on life and poetry.

Last would be to choose your blogging service. There are lots of blogging software options to choose from, but for your first blog, I recommend signing up with Blogger and being hosted at Blogspot. Why? Because it's free!

If you decide later that blogging's not as interesting a venture as you thought, you can drop it and it wont cost a thing.

Also, it's user-friendly and has extensive help/FAQ resources.

You can check their service out at:

http://www.blogger.com/