Today I'm sat in the library again (in my favourite spot- YES!), and I've been thinking about this blog. I love writing my blog but I'm not sure I'm always happy with the content.
When I first started the blog in February 2007 (almost 8 years ago) I was a moody, irrational teenager who mostly used my blog to vent about how soooo totally unfair my parents were, and how I hated school, and like completely like could not handle my life because it was so like horrible.
I genuinely cringe when I go back and read some of those posts!
Then I went to university and my blog became something deeper, a place to write about and deal with genuinely challenging problems- panic attacks, negative placements and dealing with people I love going through suffering. Even now, when I read back through my blogs at the beginning of university when I was having panic attacks in halls, I can still feel that emotion inside of me.
Post-university I wasn't always very good at writing in my blog- for about a year or so I barely posted anything. I think partly because I got better at processing my issues away from the internet, and because I had more quality friendships that allowed me to do that.
But whenever big events have happened (car crash, PJ & Hannah's wedding, GodZone changing) I have always come back here to write about it...because I enjoy writing.
I like creating something and discussing my thoughts on something, I enjoy finding the right words to express how I feel about something or my ideas on a subject.
However sometimes I'm not sure that my blog has a clear focus or direction- and I know that it's just a little blog and it's not like I have a million people reading it- but I want my blog to contribute something to someone sometimes.
So I'd like to come up with a plan of subjects to write about- my thoughts on them, what I've learnt from situations maybe...I'll still write posts about my life because I know that it's useful for some people who don't see me every day to have a way to keep up...but I also want to develop this into something more.
Of course, this could completely be seen as a procrastination tool since right now I should be doing some uni work instead of this (don't worry, I'll get onto it after this!). But instead I think it's a hobby, something that I get pleasure from, that can counteract the boring studying I have to do! Yet a hobby that I feel deserves a little more of my time and attention. I've talked recently about rebalancing my life, with university and travel feeling overwhelming, I needed to address my life and everything that I do and see what things I really want to keep and what things I can let go. Part of that process means stopping some things, part of it means investing in things that I enjoy and are important to me- and I think this blog is one of those things.
So what I need from you- please can you comment/message me with your thoughts on my blog...what do you like about it? What sort of things would you want to read if I wrote about it?
According to BlogSpot stats I can sometimes get between 30-50 page hits on my blog so I'd love as many people as possible to feedback please!
Much love xxx
1 comment:
I've made loads of commitments over the years to blog more and to blog more specifically but they never work out! I sat down and had a think about why I had wanted to blog in the first place – loads of reasons: I love to write, I’m an opinionated cow bag and writing helps me shape my thoughts so I use it as a tool; I like to share thoughts, to have discussion. I wanted to record like my diary but publically because the world is changing and I want to be part of its history, to chart my personal progression. I wanted to raise my profile (for what, and to whom?), to run a business. I achieved some of these, I haven’t others. Some of them matter, some of them don’t. You say your blog is important to you – first exercise might be to figure out exactly why.
But please don’t’ fall into the trap I did of feeling you *must* blog frequently for it to be worthwhile. Blog if you feel like it, blog if you have something to say, blog if you don’t know what you want to say but feel the need to splurge words on a page. The blogs don’t have to be perfect, your thoughts don’t have to make sense.
Some writers will write because they have a story to tell. Some write and see if a story comes from it. There is no perfect way to blog; no one does it any better than anyone else. I had to stop comparing my blog to others: I used to worry I wasn't blogging enough or for the right reasons. I wasn't impacting someon,e somewhere. I wasn’t talking about the latest cause or in thing. I wasn’t worthy.
I get mostly fulfilment now from a separate blog I started based on my passion so my suggestion if you do want to blog more frequently is to think about what *your* passions are and start writing about those. Very few “successful” blogs are diaries or sporadic thoughts – they are on a theme, a topic. There are no real niches left any more, someone somewhere is writing about that thing you might write about but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about it too.
I started Tawny’s Tales, which is about Guiding, what I do as a Guider, and allows me to wander off into women’s issues which I care deeply about. There are a billion blogs like that but none of them are written by me apart from mine.
Whatever you do, it will be great and if it reflects a tiny piece of you to any reader, they’ll be blessed. Cos it is about you, not what you write about.
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