It was a windy Monday night. The trees were howling and bending over, as if trying to fight the wind. My dad was driving me to the ER, slightly rushing. I was in the passenger seat trying to focus on breathing despite my swollen throat. We get there, do our turn of waiting and the staff finally checks me out. What I assumed were interns check out my throat. One of them groaned when they saw the state of my right tonsil. Apparently it was so swollen that my uvula, the thing hanging in the middle of my throat, was practically invisible. They sent me out into the waiting room once again to wait for a specialist to prescribe me the proper medicine. After minutes of struggling to breathe normally in the disease-filled room, I finally hear my name called and I am lead to the “treatment room”. There sat one woman barely able to keep her eyes open from pain and another stuck with an IV. Once again I wait to be treated and finally a seemingly nice nurse came, her angelic demeanor overshadowed by the two gigantic needles in her hands. She lead me to a small room that seemed to be where they draw blood. In here she explains that the doctor ordered a shot of antibiotics and a shot of steroids. The catch is that it had to be shot through my behind. Ten minutes and two very painful, and humiliating, shots later she sent me back to the treatment room with a saintly smile, as if she did not just shoot a needle into both of my cheeks. There I struggled to sit down, the medicine had sent a burning sensation to both sides of my back and legs. After the medicine has had time to set in, they discharged me with a prescription for god-knows-what and send me home with a painful bottom and a not-so-swollen throat. All in all it was a surreal experience, from the bright lights of the waiting room to the saintly, and somewhat condescending, nurse. I’m just glad that I was finally able to breathe and eat properly.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.