This post is from June 14, 2018 from Rainswept blog.
What are the top ten things that come to your mind reflecting on your blogging journey: what prompted you to start, what obstacles did you or do you still have to overcome, what have been your major learnings, what plans do you have...? (This was a prompt from Tamara from Part-time Working Hockey Mom.)
So what can I say about blogging after 12 years of it? Nothing new so there might be a repeated thought or two but these are what I thought about blogging now.
01 - I'm more of a slacker blogger now. When I started blogging, I used to post a lot, comment a lot, join a lot of challenges and memes, add my blog to a lot of directories and such. Now I just blog at a slower pace, my pace, which is really very slow.
02 - I still like to have an audience. You don't put your blog out there to keep people away, you do it do get people to come to you, isn't it true? I can't deny that I like having readers - they're one of many reasons that keeps me blogging.
03 - I do a lot of mental blogging. I think about things to blog a lot but not much gets posted because most of the time, I just don't think whatever idea I have, is interesting or good enough to post. So if it seems like I haven't posted in a long while, it just means I haven't find anything good enough to post. Either that or I'm slacking off.
04 - Sometimes I feel I should be on a blogging break every few days. It is possible to be a normal person with no thoughts of blogging what so ever but ever since I started blogging, I cannot not remember I have a blog that needs to be updated. (Occasionally I really do forget.) I envy those who can put up a post every day and not be bored with their blog. I can't do the same. So, what's a blogger to do? Well, I try to post whenever possible but mostly, I try not fret about it.
05 - Successful blogging is when you have at least, made one reader respond to your post or so I tell myself. Whenever you send a post out there, you hope for a respond, right? I think if one reader gives a (nice or not nice) respond, then you've succeeded as a blogger. I'm always grateful for those few readers who visit my blog and I'm glad I can at least, post something interesting once in a while.
06 - I still have no blog niche and I'm okay with that. This blog, my blog, is considered a personal blog which pretty much means it's a 'anything goes' blog but I mostly post about the same things - books, movies, fiction writings, drawings and everything else. But I guess it's still a bit random and lacking some forms of cohesiveness but I'm okay with that.
07 - I have no blogging schedule. I just post whenever I want and whenever I feel there is too much time in between posts. I have said several times how nice it would be to have a schedule but it's hard to have a schedule when you have no content to plan around so like my blog's random content, my schedule continues to be random too. But every now and then, I participate in challenges and memes (like this one you're reading right now) and in a certain way, this is a scheduled post.
08 - I've always disliked the two/three column blog template. I've no problems with other bloggers having one or even two sidebars, I just have a problem if it's my own blog. So my blog has returned to one column. I just find all that sidebar items to be too much chaos, too much distractions from the content and sometimes I think I'm too much of an organize freak to have a sidebar because I would keep moving items around to get them to look organized.
09 - I still have secret hopes that some of my favorite bloggers will return to blogging one day. It's just ashamed how so many bloggers just disappeared on you. They're not gone, they're just elsewhere, just not on their blog. I know they have lives and blogging is not number one on their to-do list but still, I just wish they would come back even for brief periods. Even though I have removed them from my blogroll, I still sometimes check their blogs for updates.
10 - I am a anti-social-media blogger. Okay, not entirely true since blogging is a form of social media. But I've avoided joining Facebook. I've quitted Twitter and Pinterest a long time ago. I just don't have any interest in social media. I prefer blogs more than all other medias so I guess that makes me old-fashioned.
What are your thoughts on blogging these days?
I am so with you on 09. Seeing people not blogging, but alive and kicking at facebook or INsatgran makes me sad. Please, please reutrn to the slower life of blogging, and if not, at least write a decent good bye-post.
ReplyDeleteCharlotte: It's sad but most bloggers who quit usually never comes back to blogger. But sometimes it seems like they might actually return.
DeleteThank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.
Blogging is the only thing I do too. No other social media platforms. Who has time? I'm busy blogging!
ReplyDeleteDebra: Some people might say the opposite, that they are too busy with social media to blog. I guess they decide to choose but a lot of people blog and are on social media but it's probably too much to do both.
DeleteThank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.
I agree with Charlotte above...so well said! ("at least write a decent good bye-post" 😂).
ReplyDelete"Successful blogging is when you have at least, made one reader respond to your post or so I tell myself."
I agree, but on the other hand, I think the notion of "successful blogging" is completely different from what it used to be anyway - not only because most people prefer Tik ToK and Instagram nowadays, but because we tend to form small cliques and we're all basically each other's audience at this point. So we're, like, our own version of a social network LOL.
Happy blogoversary again! I'm glad Mory lives on 😁.
Roberta: Yes, a goodbye post is the nicer thing to do.
DeleteI guess we, those who still blogs, are in our own little network.
Yeah, I can't get rid of Mory for some reason. He can be very charming. For an imagined creation.
Thank you for coming by. Have a lovely day.