It is my one year blogiversary (or it was a few days ago) and I wasn’t sure the best way to celebrate reaching such a milestone on my blog, host a giveaway maybe, but I’m always so uncertain of the logistics of such things, so then I thought maybe I could contemplate what I’ve learnt from blog so far, a bunch of basic pointers for anyone else trying to make it through their first year of blogging.
All the pressure of blogging is the pressure you out on yourself. It is difficult, but the pressures you may feel are all self made. You have to be practical and realistic with your aims, and remember to take a step back and just chill every so often if you’re stressing yourself out. Remember: blogging is meant to be fun!
Blogging is hard, its basically a part time job and people well say that beforehand but you wont believe it until you have your own blog. It is difficult, and time consuming and sometimes feels like a chore, but then you remember all the things you like about blogging and you forget again.
Perseverance is key because sometimes you will want to give up. It is inevitable that after discovering the blogging is hard work that you may want to quit, I work a 40 hour week, and then you add in commute time and the fact that I want to actually be able to sleep and have a social life, it lives a scant few hours to dedicate to my blog. I dedicate as much time as I can and sacrifice a couple of hours of sleep each week to my blog, but at times this can weigh on you and you feel like you’re not doing enough because you’ve missed out on doing posts you planned and you get that sense that maybe you should give up because you don’t have the time. Ignore that, that is a horrible dark cynical dejected voice that knows only failure, screw that. Enjoy yourself, it’s your blog and you don’t have to post if you don’t want to.
People are way nicer on the internet than you expect and if you put the effort in to comment then you will normally get that back at some point. Not that I'm a believer in always commenting back on someone's blog, but once you make yourself known to someone if they like what you're blogging they may do the same to you at some point.
You know how happy getting comments on your blog makes you? Yeah? Well, comment on other peoples as well. I don’t like to comment unless I have something to say, I know that even a quick ‘good post, some great ideas’ or whatever would still be a comment that is appreciated, but I am the kind of commenter that writes a three page essay for you to enjoy when I find a post I really like. It’s who I am. so sometimes I feel bad I’m not a more prolific commenter, but those three page essay comments take time to write!
Just because everyone else is talking about a book it does not mean you have to read it too. Ignore the hype because it can ruin a book for you. When you do give into the hype, give in because it is a book you actually want to read not because everyone is telling you to. And most importantly, accept recommendations from readers always, you never know what gem of a book you might discover.
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