“8 Reasons to Start Blogging”
As the curtains close on 2017 I’m sure many of us will be mulling over the past year … reviewing what we have done, what we haven’t quite got round to, and what we might like more of in the coming year – for ourselves, our loved ones and the wider world. For me, 2017 was the year I became a blogger! For the purposes of this post, I will be focusing on some of the things I love best about blogging. In this, I hope to answer the question that has often been put to me this year:
Why do people bother to blog? What’s it all about?
This is my 21st post. I have been blogging for nine months – publishing on average 2 to 3 posts per month, of around 1000 words each. I am writing this, therefore, from the perspective of someone who is very much still laying the foundations but keen to share my learning so far.
8 Reasons to Start Blogging:
1. It’s a public platform for your creative work
This was my main reason for wanting to start a blog – it’s a great way to share and showcase your ideas and skills. This was something I kept hearing and reading over and over so I finally decided to follow that advice and give it a go. It’s worth noting, though, that not all bloggers are writers. Many people start up a blog to showcase other creative skills – eg: cooking, photography, fashion, art or crafts – and may use images more than words.
2. It’s a rewarding challenge, that does get easier!
As a newbie blogger my challenge was two-fold: to learn to build a website using WordPress, and to write in a brand new form – the blog post. To help, I took a course in freelance writing and blogging with a professional writer and journalist. While I did learn something about writing for magazines, I learnt far more about blogging through my own experience of blogging than I did from 12 weeks of classes. YouTube tutorials, WordPress forums and good old-fashioned trial and error taught me what I needed to know.
3. It’s a way to have both creative freedom and control
One bit of advice I followed was not to worry about my particular niche at first and just to write about what I was most interested in. I have loved the freedom this has given me – to create from my own insights, inspiration and ideas.
This is how it works: I watch where my energy and attention are going, then challenge myself to write about that thing.
BLOG #11: Middle Age, Money and Making Changes
BLOG #20: Relaxation and Happiness
If I were writing for a newspaper or magazine, I would need to ‘hang’ my piece on some kind of topical ‘peg’. As bloggers, we do obviously need to consider who our audience is, but we write what we want to write – and on a platform we own and control.
4. It’s a chance to have a voice and share your values
With this freedom to explore and express, blogging becomes an opportunity to communicate who we are and what is important to us. My main blogging categories – health, humour, personal development, relationships and spirituality – are effectively a list of my core values. With the addition of audio recordings of my posts, my passions for both writing and voice are represented.
BLOG #2: Allan Kleynhans Speaks on Self-Love
5. It’s a way to crystallise, document and pass on what you know
Blogging is a wonderful way of clarifying and documenting our own wisdom, insights and learning, which are easily forgotten. The two posts that I have personally referred back to most often, are:
BLOG #12: Nurturing Our Neglected Areas
BLOG #17: Living by Our Values
6. It provides a regular structure and focus for your writing
Since April, I have published about 20,000 words to my blog – roughly the equivalent of a children’s chapter book. I think it’s quite unlikely I would have written as regularly or produced this amount of wordage without the structure provided by my blog. My blog has definitely kept me writing, and writing is something I love to do.
7. It’s great practice in trusting your own voice and judgement
Like most people, I do care what other people think. It can be very limiting, however, to be bound by other people’s approval of who we are and what we do. In the early stages of blogging I felt the need to get all my posts checked over by close friends before I could hit ‘publish’. As a proofreader I wasn’t worried about typos – it was more a question of ‘What will people think?’ Being a blogger is teaching me to trust my own voice and judgement.
The post that was by far the hardest to publish was “Making Tea the Proper British Way” …
… but, as one of the edgiest things I’ve ever written, it was also the most liberating!
8. It’s an opportunity to build connections, contribute value and make a difference
One unique and powerful aspect of blogging is its immediacy. With the click of a button you publish yourself – putting your work out there for people to see. And if you make good use of the many tools available within WordPress, and beyond, you can learn to maximise your reach and impact.
Blogging is not just about venting – it’s about building connections and putting our ideas to good use in the world.
As you begin to find your voice with blogging, two of the biggest questions to ask yourself are:
Who am I writing for?
What value am I creating?
These are two questions I will certainly be carrying with me into 2018.
In closing
One of the most delightful discoveries I’ve made along the way is that it has been the posts that have been born of the greatest struggle and frustration that have entertained my readers the most! This must be because these topics carry the most energy and emotion which then gets channelled into a creative form that others can enjoy – including myself. Interestingly, all the best examples of this have been on the topic of online dating:
BLOG #4: The Devil Wears Salvation Army
BLOG #7: How Online Dating Made Me a Man-Basher 1
BLOG #8: How Online Dating Made Me a Man-Basher 2
I will leave you here with the audible version of my own favourite from 2017 which I had the most fun writing and recording: “Me and Rosie Lee”
QUESTION: If you are a regular reader of my blog, I would love to know – which have been your favourite posts so far? List your top three in the comments below and I will endeavour to bring you more of what you’ve most enjoyed over the coming year.
Thank you for continuing to read, share and comment on my blog. Interacting with my readers is the best bit of the whole process!
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8 Comments
Patrick
My favourite are your two posts about tea. They are witty and funny, and I am in awe at how a seemingly mundane thing can be turned into such an enjoyable read.
Please find other small everyday things and shed some humourous light on them. Love it!
Tracy Starreveld
Thank you – Patrick!
You know what, they are actually my favourites too – so liberating and fun to write!
I shall do my best to produce more in that vein.
Here are the links if others are curious!
https://tracystarreveld.com/blog/rosie-lee/
https://tracystarreveld.com/blog/making-tea-the-proper-british-way/
Lilith
My favourite blogs were the ones about tea, online dating and your recent one on relaxation and happiness as I can relate to that one myself! I like the ones with humour exploring day to day topics more than the self development blogs as they are more unique and quirky and your writing style and tone is spot on!
Tracy Starreveld
Thanks Lilith – good to hear your thoughts and glad you’ve enjoyed the blogs : )
https://tracystarreveld.com/blog/relaxation-and-happiness/
raphael
For me anything you engage with passion and heart will certainly give me something, and sometimes the subjects resonate more deeply with my own curiosity and interest like with your last post about neuroplasticity.
In my top 3 I would probably put: Nurturing our neglected areas, Middle age, money and making changes, Living by our values – and the neuroplasticity one!
I don’t think you should try to bring me more of what I enjoyed though, it is impossible to please everyone, maybe a simpler approach is to follow your passionate curiosity and that enthusiasm will certainly translate in your writing organically…
This (passionate curiosity) is also your only map to engage with mystery, follow your curiosity, the rest will evolve as it should, so trust the process even if it takes time and leads to unexpected outcomes!
Tracy Starreveld
Thanks, Raphael, for sharing your favourites and also for encouraging me to be led by my own curiosity. Excellent advice, worth pondering and pursuing throughout the coming year : )
All Raphael’s favourites can be found here:
https://tracystarreveld.com/blog/category/personal-development/
Bronia
Hi Tracy,
My favourite blog posts of yours so far are ‘Nurturing our neglected areas’ and ‘Me and Rosie Lee.’ I really enjoy how you can do more serious posts about well being and witty ones about things like your relationship with tea.
But I also agree with Raphael that it would be good to follow your own curiosity rather than be guided too much by what others want. The passion you have for the subject is definitely part of what makes it engaging for the reader.
Well done on the first 10 months and here’s to your next year of blogging!
Tracy Starreveld
Hi Bronia
Great to hear which posts you enjoyed the most – thanks for your comments and lovely feedback : )
What you (and Raphael) said about passion really struck a chord with me – you may have hit the proverbial nail on its head!
Food for thought for 2018 : )
Here’s a link to one of Bronia’s favourites:
https://tracystarreveld.com/blog/nurturing-our-neglected-areas/