all users are already familiar with the usage of posting here. How about a forum dedicated to the users posting blogs? It would be just one more way to get this site noticed. If possible, the forum could be set so that only a person who creates a thread could post in it. That's optional though. Alternatively the creator could have full moderator abilities over that thread (delete spammy posts, etc.)
it could be a subset of chitchat so as to not affect post count.
Personally i would use it.