Blogging can be a lot of pressure for college students. In junior high or high school we all had our journals, or Xangas online, but our consequences were less. Since we were young and immature we could get away with grammatical errors and dull topics such as “who wore what to the dance” and “how unfair the science teacher is.”  Now that we’re older, a lot more is expected from us including profound statements and complicated ideas about life, work, and relationships. At least that’s what we think.

The truth is, we don’t have to have groundbreaking statements and ideas to make us good writers--we just have to write. Practice makes perfect, right? And lucky for us, there are ways to take baby-steps into the blogging world that will build confidence and help develop stronger writing skills.

So, writer’s block is your problem? There are blogs such as Scoop.it that pick a topic for you and let you write. This a great way to warm up to writing. You can write one or two sentences about the topic or a whole page.

If time and dedication are an issue, then try microblogging sites such as Tumblr or Posterous. These mini-blogs take a lot of pressure off generating lengthy content and are less intimidating. You can post a couple of sentences about something on your mind and not be scrutinized for being so short.

As college students, we are not expected to be brilliant and thought leaders. These are skills that only come with experience and many baby steps. For now, have fun with microblogs and find your comfortable spot online. If you feel you have something insightful to write about, don’t be afraid to do so; however, don’t feel like you must only contribute thought provoking material in order to be a strong influence.