It’s a day for reflections …where have I gone this past year, and what lies ahead in the coming month?. Sometimes I think my life has passed before now and other times I feel like it’s just beginning. Last year I visited some wonderful places, spent time with family, and finished my two-year term with braces on my teeth (a notable milestone for someone raised by a dentist and had to wait fifty years to get straight teeth!)

This coming year promises to be as wonderful with a family vacation scheduled at the Cougar Ranch (family owned recreational property in the mountains.) Following that, my Sweetheart and I are checking off a trip from my bucket list and going to upstate New York on a bus tour that will take us from Palmyra to Kansas City, Missouri.

Life is getting shorter by the day, and I have realized how necessary it is to live each day to the fullest. I plan to make this day a great one–I hope you will too.

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.