How do you know if you’re blogging for the right reasons?
It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Every day, I make time in my crazy schedule to stop what I’m doing, sit down at my computer, and write. Sometimes, though, it just doesn’t feel right.
When I started blogging, I was doing it in a vacuum. Really, it was less of a blog than a public journal. I couldn’t receive comments, and I had absolutely no idea how many hits I was getting. I wrote for the sake of writing. I was documenting the early days and weeks of my son’s life, and our trials and tribulations that went along with learning to be a family.
It was during that time that I rediscovered my passion for writing, and eventually I decided to expand. I changed the format of my blog so that I can receive comments, and I signed up for a site counter in order to know exactly how many daily readers I had and where they were coming from.
Within weeks, I was swept up in the numbers. How many unique visitors did I have? Where were my hits coming from? Which days of the week did I get the most readers? Which kinds of posts got the most comments? And then something odd happened—the more I focused on how many people were reading my blog, the less I enjoyed writing it. Blogging started to feel like a chore, and my writing suffered.
With the vast number of blogs out there today, readers have become very savvy. What we (and I say “we” because I am definitely a blog reader!) want above all else is honesty. You can feel it when a writer has become too self-conscious, and nobody wants to read a blog by someone who is clearly looking to become a star.
The truth is, very few of us will ever become A-list bloggers, and even fewer will find themselves in a position where they can quit their jobs and live on the money they’re making from blog ads. If that becomes the ultimate goal, most of us will end up failing.
But if we write for the sheer exhilaration that comes from expressing ourselves, we cannot lose. I have come to the conclusion that, for me, the joy is in the writing. If other people get something out of what I do, then that’s icing on the cake. Of course I’ll always love to receive comments and get a little tingly when I see my readership grow- but first and foremost, I have to write for me.
Yes! The power and beauty of words sequentially place in the proper order can feel exhilarating!
I am in the process of learning about blogging. Typically, all of my writing is professional (reports, notes, documentation of daily speech-language pathology sessions). I feel a deep, inner need to write something more, even if it does include information from my current career choice.
My first hurdle is to figure out a time that I can write everyday. I have four children, work part-time, try to spend quality time with my family, and squeeze in special time with my husband. My goal today is to schedule my writing, just as I have a planned schedule for my children.
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Two Type-A Moms are hitting Walt Disney World for the holidays. We will
be liveblogging, including posting real-time pictures, video, audio and
blog posts.
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