Login to dashboard vs. just the website

I’d like to do the following and I’m having a little trouble figuring out a couple of things.

1) Allow all visitors to register.
2) Allow any registered users to post on the site.

I’m going to place a login link in the menu bar and found a plugin that will allow me to redirect people back to the home page.

I would also like to place a link called “Create a Blog Post” or something similar, but not have those people logging in be redirected to the home page. I need those people to go the wp dashboard to create their post. If I put in the redirect page, how do I do this?

I was thinking that I would set up the redirect page to have two choices – go back to home or go to publish a post. But that seems like way too much work and could be confusing for the user.

Does anyone have any suggestions?