Hey, Olivia here. Thanks for giving me a few minutes out of your day. J-Walking Jams is my best thing and I’m so excited you’re here to share it with me.

J-Walking Jams is the product of a high school playlist of mine called “hallway jams”. It was the first playlist I had ever put thought and feeling into, and it ended up being largely the reason I survived high school. As my hallways became city streets in my transition to college, hallway jams became J-Walking Jams, the soundtrack to my commute, my classes, my life.

J-Walking Jams became a little bit more than a playlist and a pipe dream when I got an internship with the George Washington University radio station, WRGW. I interned for a senior named Maddie, who would become one of my closest friends and greatest allies in my first year of college. She taught me how to work a soundboard and create an entertaining broadcast for listeners. At the conclusion of my fall semester, I auditioned for airtime of my own and was selected to have a radio show for that spring.

I called it J-Walking Jams. As my own music taste is varied and unconfined by genre, I thought it was only right to have my show reflect that. Each week, I themed a show according to a sensation or a feeling, rather than a genre. You can find my show playlists and their theme explanations under the JWJ Projects tab.

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.