So you wanna be a rock and roll writer, or Hey Jerky Part II

Okay so last week I started to tell you about how to post your own stuff here to Paul Westerberg.net. But then I never got around to the meat of it all. I’m a dirty liar, you should know that.

So here’s virtually everything you need to know about posting your own content. It’s too late to turn back, so here we go:

1. So before you can start, you gots to login to the Paul Westerberg.net Factory. Because we are kind and generous benfectors, we’ve put the link right there on the right, just click that and get your login on. If you haven’t registered or don’t know how, you can learn all about that.

2. Once you’re all logged in, you’ll be welcomed to the Paul Westerberg.net factory. Sweet! There’s a lot of information this first screen. You’ve got all the things you can do on the tabs at the top (Write, Manage, Comments, Profile), and some stuff on the right I’ll tell you about in a minute. Also, because I thought it’d be cool. There’s feeds from a few of the music sites. This way you can stay up-to-date on all the stuff.

3. Over on the right you can see what’s going on in the land of Paul Westerberg.net. Here you’ll see other sites that are linking to us, comments by your fellow Westernerds, recent posts, and all kinds of other good stuff.

4. Now you’re reading to get your Hemingway on. Sweet! Click the Write tab at the top and you’ll be ready to go.

6. Okay so here you got the guts of your post. That’s what you’re writing is called. A post can appear in one of two places. At the top of the homepage (if it’s the newest post). Or over on the right of the homepage under the Pssst section (I’ll get to that in a minute).

All you need to do now, is give your post a title and then write it up. There are some buttons at the top of the Post box:

• b = bold
• i = italics
• link = hyperlink (make sure you remember to include the http:// in your links)
• b-quote = blockquote, you want to use this if you’re quoting a healthy portion of someone else’s writing (like I did here)
• del & ins = I have no idea what these are for, if you figure it out, let me know
• ul = unordered list, this will give you a bulleted list (like this one), always used in conjunction with the li
• ol = this will give you a numbered list, also used with the li
• code = again, I have no idea
• more = is used if you’re writing a many, many, many paragraphed treatise on the genius of “Lay it Down Clown”, I used the ‘more’ for this post.
• lookup = looking up words, I think. I used Dictionary.com myself, or you know I just misspell, I am a pro like that
• close tags = closing your tags

Phew. That was a lot. I encourage you to play around with them all. You’ll see how they work. Also, don’t worry about breaking things. There’s not much that you can break that I can’t fix (except for, of course, your heart, but damnit I will still try).

7. Okay, so we got some categories over on the left. I think they are kind of self-explanatory. If you forget to put your post in a category (you just check the ones you want), then it will just go into the uncategorized pool. It’s not a big deal, really. If none of these categories work for you, let us know we can always add more.

Another thing about categories? If you’re just writing a quickie little post about what you’re listening to (like a sentence or two) or have a kick-ass link you want to share, use the ‘asides’ category, that’ll put your post under the Psst section over on the right of the homepage. Only use Asides for the eeny, teeny posts. Got it?

8. This is the part that sucks and I apologize beforehand. When you’re done with your post, click the Save button. You can go back and edit any time you like. When you’re ready for the primetime, you gots to send me an e-mail (qotu@paulwesterberg.net) so I can publish your post. This totally blows, I know. But nobody wants this site to be filled with p0rn spam and the like. Plus, we don’t want anyone to be a douche all over the front page.

I promise this won’t be like this forever. Once you get a few posts under your belt, we’ll take off this restriction and then you can publish freely as you were meant to be.

That being said, I guess we kind of need to talk about the Editorial Policy (so official) here it is:
Don’t be a douche.

That’s it. I firmly believe in letting anyone write what they want. Nobody here is going to be your editor. I promise the only thing I will monkey with is styling (so you don’t break the front page). So once you post, you must be ready to deal with the consequences of what you write. Most of it will be good. Hell, we’re often tripping all over each other to pat you on the back.

However, if you post about how “Sixteen Blue” is the dumbest song ever recorded, expect to get some backlash. Backlash is fine with me. I like to argue, and I won’t play mediator if things get ugly. Just make sure you wear your bigboy pants if you’re gonna post stuff you know is going to get a reaction.

We’re all grownup here right? So it should be fine.

9. Finally. You can work on a post for as long as you want. Just click save, and you can log i later to finish. We won’t publish anything until we get the okay from you. Take your time, there’s no hurry. You can see your drafts by clicking that Manage screen.

Holy fuck (yes you can swear too, how cool is that?), that took forever to write. And probably longer to read.

If you made it through the whole ordeal, let me know. I am working on getting some PW.net goodies to share. So e-mail me and I’ll get them to you when they’re ready.

Now go write that diatribe on how the only song that ever meant anything to you is “Dose of Thunder.”