ONE YEAR OF BLOGGING!
January 04, 2018
ONE YEAR OF BLOGGING
Today is a very
exciting day. Why is it a very exciting
day? Well because today marks exactly
one year since I published my first post on my blog! I’ve come a long way in
just a year, and I’m honestly so proud of myself for accomplishing so much in
just 365 days.
Background:
You might not know
this, but before my blog, I used this website for the music I used to write and
record. Looking back now it was honestly
pretty embarrassing, but it’s what got me started. After not recording any more music or posting
on my website, I started tossing around the idea of turning it into a
blog. I already knew I loved to write,
and people liked what I wrote so I thought what if I had a place to share it
with everyone? I wanted to reach people
beyond just my family and friends, people who may be going through things and
needed someone to relate to. That’s what
I wanted to do with my blog.
How the blog got its name:
Next you might be
wondering how I came up with the name “Beauty in This Brokenness”. This was a concept I had been thinking about for a
long time before I even thought about starting a blog. The idea I had was originally for an album I
started to write a long time ago (which obviously never came to be), and it was
about seeing light in times of darkness.
That was what I wanted my blog to be based on. To share my stories and maybe inspire some
people along the way.
What is this blog
about?:
I don’t classify my
blog under any certain “niche” (as people in the blogging groups on Facebook
say). What I mean by that is some people
write blogs about lifestyle, some are about travel, some are about addiction
recovery. There are endless possibilities
of what a blog can be about. Usually
when you go to a blog, you can find out what a blog is about by looking at
either the title or the tagline. But for
me, I didn’t want to limit myself to one topic.
I didn’t want to feel like I couldn’t write about food because my blog
was about photography. That’s why my
tagline is “just me talking about……well basically everything”. If you do come here looking for something
specific, that’s why I created the “tags” section on the bottom right hand side
of the screen. If you click on one of
the words, it will show you all the posts related to that topic.
Challenges:
There are plenty
of challenges that come with blogging.
Just like with anything you do in life, people are going to criticize
you. One of the best things about my
first year of blogging is that I haven’t received a lot of negative criticism. Most people are very supportive and I’ve
gotten good feedback from other bloggers as well. There have been times when others don’t
always agree with what I have to say (I mean, the only reason why my abortion
post is one of the most popular posts is because I used it in a debate on
Facebook), but these days you can’t say anything without making someone
angry. That’s why I’ve learned not to
take the negative responses I get too seriously because there is always going
to be someone that doesn’t like you or doesn’t agree with you and I’m perfectly
okay with that. But I’m not going to
change myself to please others.
Being your own
boss is hard. There’s no one to tell you
what to do or when to post, so it can be easy to slack off. That’s probably been the biggest challenge I've faced over
the past year. I tend to lack skills in
the motivation department because I get distracted or lazy too easily. When I first started my blog, my “schedule”
was to post something on my blog twice a week.
For someone that still has school and other tasks, it proved to be very
difficult to keep up with. After I
struggled with posting for a few months, I decided I don’t need a
schedule. When I feel inspired to write
and post something, I do it; whenever that may be. I’ve learned that it motivates me so much more
than trying to stick to a schedule.
Lately I’ve been trying to post twice a month, but sometimes it doesn’t
always work out. If you follow me on
social media (@beautyinthisbrokenness), I always let you know when I posted
something new. Or you can sign up for
email updates on the right hand side of the screen.
What’s to come:
I have so many
things I want to do with my blog. I’m always
trying to create good content and reach more and more people. I now have over 100 views on two of my posts
and over 2,600 views over the whole year.
That’s crazy to me. When I started
out, there were only about 15-20 people reading my posts and now there’s
anywhere from 60-100. Those are big
numbers to me. I remember when I got
excited because 12 people listened to my song on Soundcloud three years ago. My goal is to get those numbers even higher
for next year. But of course numbers
mean little to me because the only reason it’s possible to reach those numbers
is because of you. I wouldn’t even be
sitting here writing this if it weren’t for you.
Another goal I have
is to self-host my own website. For all
of you that aren’t geeks like I am, what I mean is that I want the url to say “beautyinthisbrokenness.com”,
instead of “blogspot.com” at the end.
Blogger has been so awesome because it’s free and simple to use. Being a student with little funds, it will
definitely be awhile, but one day I hope to create my own site. I also want to collaborate with other
bloggers and have guest posts. I think
it would be a lot of fun, but I still need to work my way up a little more
before I can do that. Those are just a
few of the things I would love to see happen in the future (hopefully not that
far off).
Lastly, I just
want to take a minute to thank each and every person who has even clicked on
the link to my blog. I am so thankful
for all the support I have received, and like I said before none of this would
even be possible without you. Thank you
for an amazing first year of blogging and I can’t wait to see what this new
year brings.
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