The subject is about blogging–how do I decide what to share and what not to share? How much information is too much? What can I say about women I’ve dated?

NPH is talking about being a celebrity, which I am not at all, but this quote directly relates to my philosophy on blogging:

I feel like it’s important to have three lives. Your professional life, your personal life, and your private life.

As someone in the enterainment industry, you need to be as forthcoming about your personal life as you can be, because if people are intriged by you ,then they’ll want to know more about you. If you suddenly clam up and say “No comment” on who you’re dating, you’re just a bad guest on Letterman.

I’m in the Howard Stern camp of full disclosure. He doesn’t talk about how he had sex with his wife that night, but he talks about having sex with his wife. I think that’s where the distinction lies. You want to be able to have some transparency with people who are watching you tell stories.

I really like his distinction between professional life, personal life, and private life. The purpose of this blog is to generate conversation, and I don’t need to specifically cite a date I had three weeks ago. I can speak of dating in general or, if I need to be specific to make my point, I can change insignificant details about the date to protect the woman who didn’t sign up to be blog fodder. And it’s not just about dating–it’s insights that I learn on the job too.

George Bernard Shaw said that “The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.” Sometimes I see that on the blog–if I write about something that people have a knee-jerk reaction too (remember the entry about distrusting panhandlers?), it might generate a lot of comments. But I’ll never intentionally offend someone here.

To all of you writers out there, take heed of NPH’s advice. Find a forum (blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc) to share your personal and professional lives with the world while respecting the privacy of those in your private life. That’s how people can relate to you and connect with you.

So if you’re interested in blogging or you already blog, check out my eBook, “Brilliant Blogging.” It’s a comprehensive guide to starting, sustaining, and growing your blog.

It’s short and free, no signup required whatsoever. You don’t even have to download it. It’s right here for you to view.

The difference in final bids between the two groups of items was staggering. People were willing to pay way more for the items with the interesting stories. They found value in knowing an item’s interesting history (even if that history was completely fabricated).

Just the other day I found a music-related site called The Sixty One. Click the link to see what it looks like (music will start playing). Each page of the site is devoted to a song from an indie band or musician. Even though music drives the site, it’s quite visual as well, with photos and little stories appearing on the page every few seconds. Spend a minute looking over the page while the music plays and you feel like you truly know that band. You know their story. I think there’s a huge amount of value in that.

So it got me thinking: I need to share with you the [completely fabricated] origin of this blog. I’ll try to keep it brief:

Three years ago, I was rummaging through a yard sale in south St. Louis when I stumbled upon a typewriter. This was one of those really old typewriters, the kind with heavy keys that make that satisfying click sound when you depress them.

The odd thing about this particular typewriter was that it had a piece of paper rolled into it, paper the color of papyrus. It had obviously been there for quite some time. I turned the scroll, and as I did, I realized there was writing on the paper. It read:

My First Blog Entry

That was it. Whoever had started writing the blog hadn’t gotten past those words. Maybe something happened to them. Maybe they had no idea of what to write about. Or maybe they realized that they needed to write the entry on a computer, not a typewriter.

Whatever the reason, those four words struck a chord in me. I had been writing fiction on and off for a while, but I didn’t write consistently. I needed something that would push me to put words on paper every day. I had plenty of random thoughts and ideas that crossed my mind every day but no permanent medium on which to share them.

I didn’t buy the typewriter (who uses typewriters?!). But I did go home to buy www.jameystegmaier.com. And that, my friends, is how this blog came to exist.

(Note: I left the sex scene out of the origin story, but if you’re curious, just imagine me, the $3 in my wallet when I was at the yard sale, the $45 price tag on the typewriter, and the 68-year-old woman with whom I tried to bargain. You do the math.)

What’s your blog’s origin story?

That’s just one example out of thousands. The point is that it’s been on my mind. A lot. To compound to those thoughts, this is the first year that I’ve felt like I’ve really connected with people online. My blog audience has grown, and the comment sections are much more active than ever before. Add to that the connections I’ve met with genuine people on Twitter. These relationships feel akin to actual friendships.

And yet I’ve never met any of these people in real life.

Until yesterday.

By now you’re probably familiar with Lauren. She and I have started collaborating on a Mars vs. Venus series of blog entries that contrast male and female perspectives. She’s fantastic, insightful blogger over at my life, incomplete, and her audience is rapidly growing.

Lauren and her boyfriend were visiting St. Louis this weekend for a mini-vacation of sorts (in some circles, St. Louis is called the “Hawaii of the midwest), so she asked if I’d be interested in grabbing a mid-afternoon beer with them. We decided to blog about the experience since it was the first time that either of us had met an online friend in person. Here’s Lauren’s entry. (We haven’t read each other’s entries as of this posting.)

Through our online interactions, I had a pretty good idea of the type of person Lauren would be (i.e., not crazy). I was curious, however, about how she and her boyfriend would interact with a third party in person. After all, someone could be completely socially adept online but not at all in person. Plus, given my long-distance relationship over the past year and recent singledom, I know what it’s like to be a third wheel. Sometimes couples get a little too snuggly or inside-jokey, and that’s when it starts to get awkward.

Fortunately, I found hanging out with Lauren and Doug to be really easy and not awkward at all. I didn’t think about this until right now, but it actually helped the conversation that they didn’t sit right next to each other. We were all spaced out evenly around a booth at Brennan’s. I’m not sure if it was intentional on their part, but it kind of made me feel like an equal in the conversation instead of the third wheel that I was.

I really enjoy Lauren’s frank, to-the-point commentary on her blog, and that’s how she is in person. She’s a very strong woman, and I can see why she’s starting to gain some momentum and clout in the single-parenting niche. I’ve had limited interaction with Doug on the comment boards of Lauren’s blogs, but he was a great guy in person–intelligent, down-to-earth, and really friendly. He was very confident and not over-protective of Lauren–given the scenario of some random dude meeting up with his girlfriend, I can see how some guys would have made it a point to stake claim of their girlfriend. But it’s clear that Doug has a high level of respect and trust for Lauren, and he seemed to grant me that trust as well.

Aside from all these observations, I just had a darn good time. We met up around 3:00 and hung out for a good 3 hours, the two of them drinking me under the table in the process. These are the type of people I’d hang out with if they lived in St. Louis. Funny, engaging, good storytellers, and completely open to any conversation topic.

Also, one interesting thing to note about meeting someone with whom your primary communication has been blog reading and comments is that you know them by their blog posts. This means you can’t presume that you truly know them through and through, but at the same time, you know some fairly personal things about them. I thought that helped conversation–our chat was friendly and fun at times, and in others it was refreshingly deep.

Writing all this, I’m rather curious to see what Lauren says. She and Doug could have had a completely different impression of me–I really don’t know. I just tried to be myself, and after a few beers, it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.

Overall, this makes me want to meet more people that I’ve connected with online. So I’ll put this out there: If you’re ever in St. Louis, let’s meet up for a beer. Seriously. Let’s bridge the gap between the digital and the real. And the same goes for my travels–I’m driving from St. Louis to Richmond and back over the next week and a half, in late March I’ll be going to Vegas for a weekend, and I’ll spend a week this summer in the Outer Banks in North Carolina. If you live near any of those areas, let’s meet up. Hopefully Lauren can assure you over on her blog that I’m just a normal guy.

Now go on over to Lauren’s blog and read her post. And let me know your take on meeting online friends in person below. Have you ever done it?

One other interesting quality about lists is that you know what you’re getting into when you read a subject line. Maybe you read the first item or two and then decide if it’s a list worth reading in full.

I figure that there’s an ideal list length for everything, and I intend to find out what works best. To contribute to this, please vote below, pretending that you just stumbled upon a blog with X number of pieces of advice on a certain topic. When it comes to advice, do you want a short list that boils the advice down to a few key points–3 or 5 items–or a longer, more comprehensive list–7 or 10 items? I’m not including all numbers because I don’t think our brains are made to make choices between that many items.

Take Our Poll

Thanks, and I’ll post similar polls on different topics in upcoming weeks (i.e., maybe you prefer short lists of advice but long lists of humor or recommendations, and so on). If you have any topics that would apply to this experiment, let me know.

If you watched The Daily Show last night, you saw a very nervous Steven Levitt banter with Jon Stewart for a while. Orator he may not be, he’s a great writer and researcher. If you haven’t read his book, Freakonomics, read it. It’s worth it.

The two things that impress me most about the Freakonomics guys (it’s not just Levitt) are (1) they’re ability to find statistical, factual reasons for things that aren’t apparent at all, and (2) the sheer number of interesting stories they tell. Because Freakonomics isn’t just a book, it’s also a fascinating, must-subscribe-to blog.

That link will take you to a video on another fascinating blog sponsored by the good folks over at Volkswagon called The Fun Theory. It’s just a few videos right now, but I guarantee that they’ll make you smile (but probably not buy a Volkswagon). The idea is that good, fun design can change the world for the better. That’s something I can get behind. See the video below:

Finally, if you haven’t already subscribed to the blog 1,000 Awesome Things, do it. Prepare to smile and nod in agreement. I loved the line yesterday in the entry I linked to here about new things where the batteries are included (in reference to what the manufacturer is saying to you): “The first round’s on us.”

Also, while I’m on this blog kick, if you’re tired of clicking on 50 different sites/blogs a day to see if there’s new content, sign up for Google Reader. It’s free, it’s easy to set up, and you’ll be able to read more interesting stuff in much less time than it takes you to see what’s new right now.

See a list of all blogs I recommend here.

I’m pleased with the success of that post. However, for the most part, people who search for “Salma Hayek” only see her photo when they click through, not the entire blog entry. So every day when I check my blog stats, it is my greatest wish that an entry that I actually wrote does better than a photo of Salma Hayek.

This hardly ever happens. But it certainly keeps things interesting. I mean, if you have to run a daily race, who would you rather race against than Salma Hayek? Maybe I should just let her win.

I should also note that the second-most popular entry (thanks to searches and its ranking on my Top Posts sidebar widget) is an entry I actually wrote about Puerto Rico that I’m pretty pleased with. And always up there is the infamous entry about the hottest animated Disney female…looks like my shell-bra friend is still in the lead. (Sidenote: How many of the ladies out there are dressing up as a Disney character for Halloween?).

I should preface this entry by saying that I read a lot of blogs. Google Reader makes it easy that way. Very, very few of them are personal blogs. I’d say about three.

Why is that? Well, I generally think that for me to get something out of a blog, it has to be about something that could help move my life forward or increase the information I have to make good decisions in my life. Whether that’s in regards to technology, business, publishing, etc–those blogs give me useful information that I’m glad I have. The rest are humor blogs.

Given those parameters, I recently found a very personal blog that really makes me think about things. I don’t know the person who writes this blog, but she shares stories from her life (which is completely different from mine) in a way that makes me evaluate my own life. It’s called “my life, incomplete.”

Other blogs I’ve talked about here:

The Makansi Effect (writing)

In Search of Monsters (writing, humor)

Judicial Peach (cooking)

The Wellinghoff System (college football)

The Creative Cooler (advertising)