Day 183 of 365 - 6 Month Review
I'm halfway through my blog challenge! It's time to review what I've learned. First of all, many thanks to those who have followed and read my posts. An audience is appreciated, however small.
When I first took this on, I thought that by keeping my posts relatively short, I would never run out of ideas for topics. Well, I have now learned that is not true! Some days it is a challenge to find a theme or inspiration.
To help me with this, I am following some tips from a storytelling book, using some daily exercises to capture writing ideas. A friend also shared with me a link to a page of blogging tips, which I appreciate. I am also seeing trends of what ideas are more popular than others, which is helpful too.
On average, I spend a couple of hours each day, finding a subject, researching and writing. Some days it is longer if I go down a rabbit hole of reading! Because the mainstay of my blog is meant to be about health and vitality, particularly as I move into my senior years, I also assumed there would be consistent interest in health topics. That is not necessarily the case. Therefore, I have interspersed many general interest topics.
If I were using this blog to market a service or to earn income as an affiliate of other services or sites, more effort would be required in terms of making a more appealing presentation with graphics and links. Because that's not the case, I'm happy to keep a simple format.
What I have learned about myself in this process is, it's hard work to write an informative, yet personally engaging piece every day. Sometimes I feel I succeed and others I don't. At first, I was also a bit anxious to see how many readers I have on any given day. The Blogger site automatically tracks the number of views for each post. Since Facebook is the platform I use for sharing, I know this limits my audience somewhat. I know a few people have subscribed directly to receive it as an email. Anyone can do do that by clicking on a button on the blog page and putting in their email address. Again, it would be more work to find and use multiple sharing methods to increase readership.
Ultimately, to save my sanity and time, I choose to write about whatever has recently inspired me and try to learn something myself in the process. I'm also finding out what my writing skills are like and where I can improve as a storyteller.
Blogging is not for the faint of heart. It feels rather like an educational course I am completing, but has no ultimate goal other than writing something interesting each day. If you, the reader, also learn something in the process too, then I'm glad to continue and contribute to that. We can journey together.
When I first took this on, I thought that by keeping my posts relatively short, I would never run out of ideas for topics. Well, I have now learned that is not true! Some days it is a challenge to find a theme or inspiration.
To help me with this, I am following some tips from a storytelling book, using some daily exercises to capture writing ideas. A friend also shared with me a link to a page of blogging tips, which I appreciate. I am also seeing trends of what ideas are more popular than others, which is helpful too.
On average, I spend a couple of hours each day, finding a subject, researching and writing. Some days it is longer if I go down a rabbit hole of reading! Because the mainstay of my blog is meant to be about health and vitality, particularly as I move into my senior years, I also assumed there would be consistent interest in health topics. That is not necessarily the case. Therefore, I have interspersed many general interest topics.
If I were using this blog to market a service or to earn income as an affiliate of other services or sites, more effort would be required in terms of making a more appealing presentation with graphics and links. Because that's not the case, I'm happy to keep a simple format.
What I have learned about myself in this process is, it's hard work to write an informative, yet personally engaging piece every day. Sometimes I feel I succeed and others I don't. At first, I was also a bit anxious to see how many readers I have on any given day. The Blogger site automatically tracks the number of views for each post. Since Facebook is the platform I use for sharing, I know this limits my audience somewhat. I know a few people have subscribed directly to receive it as an email. Anyone can do do that by clicking on a button on the blog page and putting in their email address. Again, it would be more work to find and use multiple sharing methods to increase readership.
Ultimately, to save my sanity and time, I choose to write about whatever has recently inspired me and try to learn something myself in the process. I'm also finding out what my writing skills are like and where I can improve as a storyteller.
Blogging is not for the faint of heart. It feels rather like an educational course I am completing, but has no ultimate goal other than writing something interesting each day. If you, the reader, also learn something in the process too, then I'm glad to continue and contribute to that. We can journey together.
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