Why I’m Quitting Blogging

I know, I know. Only a few posts ago I was announcing my love for, and return to, the blogging world. However, it turns out I’m actually quitting. At least for a bit. I love it, I really do but I just can’t find any meaningful gravity in it right now; my blogging journey has turned into a fight against an addiction to instant gratification and I’ve decided I’m not here for that anymore. Allow me to explain.

I can’t just create to create. Writing for the sake of having posts go live every week isn’t working for me right now. It feels somehow empty and draining. Like repetitively serving coffees as a barista. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore creating, particularly through writing. But each metaphorical coffee I make seems to take away a little more of my purpose as I hand it over the metaphorical counter (the internet). I’ll put it this way: I still feel compelled to make pretty latte art for others but when I get home from work, I’d rather go to bed than make a coffee for myself. Paradoxically, although a hugely creative hobby, blogging seems to be hindering my creative process in general.

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A (kind of) Love Letter

Hey there,

I know you’re feeling hurt at the moment, I sense it in the silence and distance between us. Whenever I try to start a conversation with you, you leave me with unfinished sentences: frustrating lines that hit connectives, hanging as uncomfortably at the end of a line as an introvert at a frat party. Connectives are made to mingle amongst the dancing letters of a sentence, not act like roadblocks for a train of thought.

You can tell I’m frustrated when I start mixing modes of transport in one simile. Yes, I’m a little frustrated. Not at all with you though, you’ve been wonderful this last year, but with myself for neglecting you these past months. And for allowing that to create both this space between us and my difficulty in coming back to you. You’ve always been there for me when I needed to let my thoughts out in chaotic streams of consciousness, no matter how much time and attention I had, or didn’t have, for you. And so I can understand you’re hurt.

What’s The Deal With Pinterest Then?

For most bloggers, being active on social media is very important. It’s how we grow our blogs, engage with other readers and writers, find inspiration, get feedback, support others and generally take the personal nature of owning a blog into a public arena. As I’ve gotten to grips with blogging over the last eightish months, I’ve slowly introduced each social media platform one at a time.

One month in, I set up Twitter. I think I have an okay understanding of this platform now: I sometimes take part in blogger chats and feel like this is a wonderful place to not only find other bloggers but engage with them too. So many wonderful people have supported me over on Twitter; I recently started my own little project on there, with the aim of giving back a bit of love to the people that have helped get me to where I am now and also create their own amazing content.

Why I Ditched My 1K Instagram Account

A few days ago, I decided to start a new Instagram account. If anyone reading this follows my old one, they might be thinking ‘why?!’ I had over 1k followers on there and a feed I quite liked. I’ve worked hard to get it to that point so why on earth would anyone in that position start from 0 again: especially when it is notoriously difficult to grow an audience on Instagram now. If you’re only here for the short answer then all you need to know is that I wanted a fresh start.

Not satisfied by that answer? Then stick around for the long story…

Bloggers Whose Positivity and Content Inspire Me ft. Cross Dimensional

A little while ago, I spoke about my desire to take part in more collaborative blogging. Milind from Cross Dimensional was one of the first people to contact me, suggesting that we talk about positivity. Today, Milind will be sharing positive things that are happening in society despite all the negative news – that should be super interesting so make sure to check that out as soon as it’s live! When the topic of positivity was first brought up, I started thinking about the support I felt as a newcomer to the blogging world, and how this has continued throughout my writing-on-the-internet journey; this is what I’ve decided to discuss over here on my blog.

My Thoughts Entering the Blogging World

Coming into the blogging world, I was a little apprehensive. Let’s face it, the internet doesn’t have the best reputation for friendliness. You hear about cyber bullying, trolls, and harsh comments being thrown around the world wide web like flyers at a promotional event for flyers. That was oddly specific, but I’m just going to go with it. The prospect of having all of that negative energy directly dumped on me sent tingles of fear up my spine.

Am I Good Enough to be a Blogger? – Conversations with Anxiety #10

Snapshots of the conversations that are had between anxiety and I: the things we fight over, the discussions and debates we take part in and the struggle to reason with irrationality. Some of these are based on past events or reoccurring battles, some on more recent occasions, and some are simply extrapolations of experiences I’ve had.

Anxiety: Why do we do this ‘blogging’ thing?

Me: Do you have to ask this now? I’m trying to concentrate on writing a post.

Anxiety: You’re avoiding the question.

Me: Ufff. We blog because it’s fun, we enjoy writing, we like connecting with others, hopefully we have something at least a little worthwhile to say–

Anxiety: Ugh, really? You actually think that?

Want To Be a Featured Writer?

Before we jump into the post… In celebration of hitting 700 blog followers, I thought I’d do something a little different. Publishing this is going to push me out of my comfort zone, and is really not something I’d ever have seen myself writing a post about. Yet, I feel some great things could come out of this, and it’s important to challenge ourselves if we can see positives on the other side. So, in the spirit of challenging comfort zones, here goes nothing…

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The last two months I have been plagued by one of the most common blogger complaints: a lack of time and energy to dedicate proper attention to blogging. I have struggled to stay on top of blogging, having written only nine posts so far in April compared to the eighteen I wrote in January. I have had so much going on and so much uncertainty colouring my life that creativity and connection have fallen to the wayside. This saddens me.

I’m Blogger of the Month on Another Station, Another Mile by Rachel!

When Rachel, from Another Station, Another Mile, reached out to me a couple of weeks ago wondering if I’d like to be featured on her blog, I was delighted! This is her first post in a new series, ‘Blogger of the Month’ and I love the idea behind this. This kind of support for other people’s content is something I love to see in the blogging community and I will definitely be keeping up with her blogger recommendations over the coming months – it’s always exciting to read about writers I haven’t encountered before.

Blogger Recognition/Unique Blogger/Mystery Blogger/Awesome Blogger/Liebster Awards Mashup

In the last month or so, several wonderful bloggers have tagged me in these five awards and I am so incredibly grateful to all of them. I’d love to dedicate a post to each one but that’s going to take a while to get them all posted, so I thought putting them all together would be the best idea.

Two Months In: My 2017 Blog Stats and Reflection

In case you haven’t noticed, 2017 ended a couple of days ago, and that inevitably means it’s time to reflect on the past year. I thought I’d take a moment to have a look back on my blogging journey so far.

My blog was born on 7th November 2017, and in the 54 days between then and New Year’s Eve, I published 40 posts which amounted to around 23,500 words. I toppled over 200 WordPress followers around the start of the year, with over 1000 visitors to my blog worldwide, primarily from the UK, USA and Canada, and a total of 2700 views.