Guess who just got a notification that my blog is one today, and what a year it has been! I feel like this is supposed to be a huge moment for me, and it kind of is, but at the same time I’m kind of underwhelmed. Or maybe its just whelmed (thanks @young justice for this). To be brutally honest, I forgot that today was this blogs anniversary, and without the WordPress pop-up I would’ve passed it by altogether.
And so what have I learned in the past year? I’ve learned that blogging is REALLY HARD! Trying to balance this with my school and life is difficult – whenever I have to prioritize, I always put life first, and that’s not something I’m going to apologize for. I love this blog but living is something that I have to do too haha. Also, it just snowballs – once you’ve taken a week off it turns into two and then a month etc. That’s totally what happened to me this year at the end of October – the weeks just rolled together, and I found it was the end of December before I had the energy to post again.
Other issues that I’ve had? This is silly but losing my posts. Google docs have failed me a couple times this year, and I have been devastated each time I lose data. Or I get a really good idea and then I lose it after not writing about it for a while. Even coming up with ideas can be difficult – I do reviews a lot because they’re easier to finish, but other ideas have sometimes been hard to come by.
My advice? Write when you can. If you can write a load of posts and then schedule them to be posted, it really helps to be on top of it! If you’re going to be writing a review, write it (if possible) within 24 hours of finishing the book. Even though you’ll still have the general outline of the book, you’ll probably lose the small details and end up writing general statements. That’s how you can tell I’ve slacked on my reviews – I’ll end up saying “the theme was so powerful” or “the writing was lovely and lyrical”. Write down your ideas when you get them so as to not lose them. Set a time to write – take an hour every week and set that aside to blog it out! And finally, if nothing else is working, just write – to beat the block, power through it (or at least, that’s what works for me).
For the future of this blog I’d love to get better at being more regular with posting! I’m going to set aside an afternoon once a week to write and build up posts. My planner is going to be my best friend in every instance. I want to keep writing, and maybe even work on writing a novel one day (this is a very tentative plan). I’m definitely not saying that I’m going to be writing right off the back, but I want to get there one day. And I’d love to be a reviewer for even more companies. I’m already a reviewer for Simon & Schuster Canada, but I’d love to be open to other publishers too. I’d also love to build a better sense of community – meet more bloggers, and maybe with my bookstagram I’d like to do a giveaway with the local creative community, candles and bookmarks and the such!
So we’ll see what the future holds and go from there! Thanks for the one year and here’s to many more to come! Have a good night ducks!
Words, Pages, Books 