First, decide where you want to host your blog. There are a variety of free blogging sites with blogging packages that will suit most beginning bloggers. Below is a list of some of the more popular options:

Blogger
Word Press
Type Pad
Live Journal

There are even blogs for people with specific interests or lifestyles, such as:

Homestead Blogger
Homeschool Blogger

Second, decide on what level of privacy, if any, you want. Depending on where you host your blog, you can choose to make your blog completely public, require people to register to read it, protect it with a password, or make it completely private with you being the only one capable of accessing it (in other words, it serves as a private journal). In addition, you can choose to allow comments, allow comments only with your approval, or disallow them entirely.

For my personal blog, I’ve chosen to protect it with a password. I wasn’t comfortable with all the details of my life being out there for all the world to see, but most people choose the public option. If you decide to make your blog public, there are still ways to maintain a modicum of privacy. Using nicknames or code names for the members of your family and avoiding mention of your location are some fairly easy (but not foolproof) things to do. Although probably rare occurrences, there are families who’ve experienced negative repercussions because of having given private details about their families’ lives and adoptions in public blogs. In one real life example, a woman mentioned having had too much to drink at a party, and someone who knew her contacted her adoption agency with the information and the agency subsequently decided to rescind their approval of her adoption plans.

If you protect your blog with a password, you can keep track of those who’ve requested the password as well as verify their reasons for wanting to have access in the first place. When people ask for the password to my blog, they nearly always explain that they’re an adoptive family, or considering adoption, or homeschool. If someone asks for the password without explanation, I ask what their motivation is. This isn’t foolproof, either, but I feel comfortable with this level of risk.

If blogging isn't your thing and you're interested in some alternatives, please see part three.