Every blog, when it is started, needs to be defined. Otherwise too many ideas make the possibility of posting seem overwhelming.

I know. I’ve had that problem.

I started my first blog back in 2003, when blogs first started to become a major part of the Web. I was excited to launch the first CharlesRedell.com as my personal blog (that’s the earliest iteration I can find in the Wayback Machine). It would be my playground with no focus except my life and the random thoughts and links I decided to throw up there.

Like so many other personal blogs, mine faltered after the flame of fascination dwindled to a softer glow. Then, after sitting idle for a few weeks, I’d pick it up again with a renewed “vow post” to post more often. Like the directions on a bottle of shampoo to “Rinse. Wash. Repeat,” the cycle went on and on and on.

I finally broke the pattern when I went to work at the South Pole in 2006. Traveling to such a remote, isolated and little-visited place gave me what I thought was a great story line to hook a blog on. Plus, since I’d only be there for four months, my Antarctica blog would be finite. A definite ending and a clear focus, I hoped, would give me a structure in which to work that would help me write a coherent story.

For different reasons, that blog did end up going through a short fallow period, but for the most part, I kept up with it because having one subject to post about (not to mention an audience since I did some marketing of the site) gave me much more drive to post.

I returned to the States full of intention to revive my personal blog and to keep up with it. Again, the same issues cropped up and it lay fallow. I looked around for another story to hook a blog on and even tried an experimental one that failed miserably. Again, the storyline (”My online life”) was too undefined.

About that same time I was starting life as a freelance journalist. I pounded the virtual pavement, started creating a network and building contacts through a local site called biznik. Biznik introduced me to a lot of independent business owners, many of whom seemed to be voicing a common theme when the discussion turned to marketing. They all had blogs and planned to use them as tools to build visibility and credibility. But most were unused and lay dormant because, “I should blog about that, but I never seem to get around to it.”

Oh how well I knew that problem. Then, it struck me: These people all have a clear, concise storyline to hook their blogs on, but can’t keep them up. When I have such an easy hook, I can blog with the best of them (much of my work as a journalist is as a blogger for other sites). Why not help these people out by blogging the things they can’t?

And a business was born.

But back to this blog. This post is the Ghost Blog’s first and as such, should be somewhat definitive. So I have developed two lists. Please feel free to remind me of these items if you see my attention drifting.

What this blog is

• This blog is an example of how I write on a blog.
• This blog is a tool I am using to help me define my business: Ghost Blogs.
• This blog is yet another link meant to increase the visibility of my business: Ghost Blogs.
• This blog is a site where I will examine words and how they are used.
• This blog is a place for me to experiment with web tools for building visibility.

What This Blog Is Not

• This blog is not a personal journal.
• This blog is not a playground (though it will be fun to write and read)
• This blog is not going to be just one voice. I hope it gains readers who are interested in having discussions in the comments.
• This blog is not going to be home to posts as long as this on a regular basis.

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