End of Year Gratitude: 10 things learned as a new(-ish) blogger

A few months ago, I tentatively decided to start a blog.

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I wrote a few posts and saved them as drafts and thought about it for quite awhile before making them visible in a piecemeal way over the next few weeks.

Then, I kept writing.

I wasn’t sure what to expect because I truly didn’t have an agenda, I mainly wanted to create positive content that was uplifting or elevating in some way – especially after all the stress that the pandemic had brought into so many of our lives.

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I’m happy I decided to hit “publish” because this has been a positive and life expanding experience for me. Since lists are everything (!), here are 10 things I’ve learned as a fairly new blogger.

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• I truly appreciate the feeling of community on WordPress. There are so many thoughtful writers who are experts in their different genres and who support each other on a daily basis. I wasn’t expecting that and it has been a pleasant surprise. I enjoy reading blogs and engaging with others on different topics. Thank you to every one reading for being there!

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• Writing is therapeutic and refreshing. While views matter, writing for the sake of writing is just as valuable to me. Writing gives me that personal time to sort out my thoughts on a variety of subjects.

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• The length of the post doesn’t matter. I used to give myself arbitrary minimum or maximum word counts – I’m finding that a creative burst can be short or extensive and both of these are equally as important.

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• It is okay to press publish even if the post isn’t perfect. Perfectionism can often take over when I’m editing a post. Rather than dwelling on the minute flaws, I think it helps to figure out if you’ve communicated everything you want to communicate in the post. If you’ve reviewed your work and ensured that there aren’t any glaring flaws then it is okay to press publish and let it go.

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• Taking the time to read others’ blogs and respond to comments on your own and others’ blogs makes all the difference. I think we all expand as humans when we read about different perspectives and engage with others. I’ve also found that my own writing evolves when I take the time to read more.

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• It is important to have a running idea list that you can add to in the middle of the night when an idea occurs to you out of the blue. I find myself wanting to jot down ideas at the oddest times and every time I do take the time to write down that germ of an idea, I come away with more to write about at a future time.

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• What you planned on writing and what actually gets written can be worlds apart. It is good to let go of structured expectations. I think that allowing for the free flow of creative thought makes for more interesting content. If an outline for a post doesn’t resonate any longer, it is worth it to revise your original train of thought. I find that taking time away from an initial draft and then coming back to revise it makes for a more cohesive post.

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• Writing in blog format provides an avenue for creative expression on many different subjects. Blogging is a truly unique form of writing. Unless you have a very specific and narrow blogging niche, this form of writing can give you the freedom to express your ideas on different subjects and in different ways. You can write a short story, a poem, a few thoughts or anything at all on any given day. This opens up so many different avenues for being creative.

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• Consistency helps with being consistent. This sounds like the cliche it is – but there is so much truth to this. If you write even on days you don’t feel like writing, your ideas will flow more easily over time.

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• Taking the time to learn the basics of how content can reach more readers (key words, types of titles etc.) is important. This is something I need to understand more and do more of – those few tweaks can be easy to do and helpful for the growth of a blog.

I’d love to hear from you. If you write or blog, what are some of the things you’ve learned along the way? Do any of these points resonate with you as well?

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