Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

My friends, I’d like to introduce you to a new blog I’ve created. For a while I’ve wanted to launch my own blog that covers all things keep, from movies to TV shows to video games and so on. Well, I finally decided to hunker down and do it, dammit, and thus VonGeekenstein has been created.

With VonGeekenstein, we plan to cover the entirety of geekdom, including news, reviews, op-ed pieces, and so on. I just launched it yesterday, though, so right now it’s a little slow to start, but it’ll get going. I also have friends who will help cover areas of geekdom I know nothing about (i.e. TV shows I don’t watch myself like Lost or Heroes).

So please take a look at VonGeekenstein and let me know what you think if you have a moment. If you have a suggestion on something to write about, would like to write something yourself, or a comment or whatever, don’t hesitate to let me know either here or there. Thanks for your time, and enjoy.

• Lisa and I have been dating for nearly six months now, and it's been awesomely fantastic. :) Things are going great, and I couldn't be happier. :)


• Monthly movie days have returned, and the first one of 2010, Die Hard Day, was a success! Next month is TV Pilot Day, followed by the return of WalkenFest in late March. :)


• My Serenity-based RPG is still going strong. We're trying to meet at least monthly, and we always have a fabulous time when we do. :)


• My birthday is coming up. 37 here I come! Just when I was getting used to 36...


• It's going to be a very busy couple of months coming up. My birthday, RPG sessions, movie days, another BDF (Brian Drunk Fest), Gallifrey One, WonderCon, Creation's Supernatural convention, and so much more. Yeeep!


• Both cats are doing wonderfully, in case y'all were wondering. ;)


• I'm starting cooking lessons today with my friend Tony, since he's given me the most flak about not knowing how to cook. ;)


• I've been going to the gym nearly every day for three weeks now, and have lost nearly six pounds so far. I'm using a website called Sparkpeople to keep track of my weight goals and such, and hope to be at my ideal weight by mid-May or June.


• To help motivate me at the gym and keep me from being bored, I'm rewatching Supernatural from the beginning while on the machines there. So far I'm up to Bugs. ;)


• I'm currently stuck on season 5 of The West Wing. I love the show, but this particular season is paaaaaaaaaaaaainful. I've also watched three seasons of 30 Rock, which I now adore, and am going to slip in Psych, The United States of Tara and True Blood on my watch list next.


• I've been playing the trial of an MMO called EVE Online, and am loving it. I might just subscribe. ;)

Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

As you can see, this is a blog. A blog, short for “web log” is usually someone’s stream of consciousness about one or many topics that interest them. However, what if you want to be a little more serious than that? What if you want to write about one topic, ultimately professionally? What if you, instead of writing little snippets about what happened in your day, you want to write interesting pieces of high literary or journalistic value?

While there’s no one way to do this, as someone who has written for a living as a journalist, and currently writes for a living as an SEO copywriter, I’ve seen and learned a lot of things along the way, and thought I’d share some tips. First off, decide what you’re writing about, whether it’s for a site covering cheap health insurance in which you need to write a lot of researched copy, or a spate of computer game reviews — both of which are my examples — one needs to keep focused on what they’re writing about.

Secondly, whether you’re writing articles on education or flight simulators, you need to do your research. With resources like wikipedia, answers.com and so on, there’s little end to the resources available to writers looking to do research into various topics. Specialized sites are also a good resources, such as Web MD if you’re looking for information on health-related issues. You always want your facts and opinions to be as correct as possible, in order to earn your reader’s trust.

Going along with that, thirdly, is to be honest. If, sticking with my own example, if I didn’t like a video game, I bloody well said so. If you’re honest with your readers, it also goes toward building a level of trust with your readers, and trust is insanely important. It’s one of the main reasons people will return to your site and keep reading your articles.

While these are some simple basic tenets to getting your writing career started, there is a lot more to learn. Since every writer, every site and every medium is different, it’s ultimately up to the writer themselves to determine their own path. If you are planning to write a blog about something in the hopes of taking it professionally, keep these in mind and you’ll eventually find your own corner of the web in which you can carve out your own success.

Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

Why are my Supernatural episode reviews usually late? ^_~ Because I like to watch the episode twice before writing my review, and I sometimes don’t get to do a second viewing until days later. Now, with that being said, please enjoy my review of Supernatural 5×10, “Abandon All Hope”. ^_^

Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

This past weekend, I attended Creation Entertainment’s Salute to Serenity and Firefly convention here in Los Angeles, and wrote about it for Whedonopolis. I hope you enjoy it. ^_^

Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

As a wanna-be professional blogger, former professional journalist and current professional Internet marketer, I have my own idea about how to create and promote a blog. My theory begins with simple cross promotion. Write a blog entry here, for example, and make sure mention of it goes out to places like Twitter, LiveJournal, Facebook and so on in the hopes that people will read it and come back when I have more to write.

Originally published at Brian's Universe. You can comment here or there.

Two years ago, I had some massive breakthroughs in therapy. Before that, I was depressed, anxious, full of self-loathing and self-hatred, self-abusive and so on. I’m not saying this for pity, just as simple, plain truths. Well, after my enormous breakthroughs, life has improved tremendously in just about every way. ^_^ There was one, odd side effect however that’s been kind of annoying…random, constant, vivid dreams nearly every night…