I’ve been slogging through my old blog posts for the last little while.
Correcting, eliminating, labeling, sorting things out.
Yes, some of those posts are gone, they don’t all deserve to stay.
Some I am treasuring… I can almost see where I stretched, and grew.
It hurt at times, it made me cry at others… laugh, smile, and know that it was worth the effort.
It’s somewhat slow going, but it’s enlightening at times.
The wistful “when will these Muddy Boot dreams come true” posts, wanting so badly to be up here in the Okanagan living our new life, not realizing during my deepest doubts how close it was to happening.
The newbie posts where I was lost, and lonely at times, when there was a good reason to celebrate a extra comment, and another reader, bringing me up to the whopping total of 10 readers.
The times I was so excited and sure that I knew where I was heading kind of posts, only to change directions like a flag buffeted in the wind.
We grow, and change the more we blog, that’s good.
The ones where I found my voice, misplaced it, only to find it again.
This time I am keeping it close to me. It’s mine, it’s me.
The growth of my love for photography, when I finally discovered the manual settings on my camera, and how to use them. The fact that there was more to shoot then the flowers in the backyard.
If I could visit that newbie blogger once again, and impart something that I have learned in these years of blogging, I know what I would say.
To write a blog, and do it well.
To be engaging, interesting, and thoughtful.
To be full of energy, and surprises, to keep your reader’s attention.
To keep them wanting more, y ou must give more, think more, experience more.
You must open your heart more, plan more, decide more, share more.
And sometimes it’s just not a possibility.
To write, to think, to do.
To be positive, and charming, and thoughtful seems to drain even the best of us at times, it’s life. Just move forward through it, it shall pass.
Life is so full of experiences, things to be done, requirements of our time, stuff we must do, there will always be something to blog about.
Into each blogging life a little rain will fall, things will break, disappear, fall through… and you will lose interest, just as much as you are thrilled to discover something or someone new.
Learn from your mistakes.
Blogging is like a puddle of water, that dries up, only to overflow with emotions, thoughts, ideas, and images that we can’t get down fast enough at another time. Sometimes filling in the blanks, sometimes the blanks are left there for a reason.
Because life is always happening in the background.
And when life happens, we will blog about it.
And when it doesn’t happen, we blog about that too.
The one thing you must do when you blog, is not to take it too seriously.
Life goes forward, things happen, people come and go in your blogging life, keep moving forward.
Live life and blog, love life and love blogging.
Use spell check!
Make friends, form relationships, yes, these people are real.
Write nothing that you wouldn’t want your Mom to read.
Always leave nice comments, even when someone leaves a mean one for you.
You have friends out there in the blogging world, and you will find that out when you need them.
Don’t let the urge to check your stats or your followers dictate what and how you see blogging.
Treat your readers like gold, for they are the reason your blog exists.
Comparison is the death of all creativity, we each have set out on a journey to a different destination, sometimes those roads converge, sometimes they take off in opposite directions. It’s your journey, no one else's, take the path that works for you.
There will be shooting stars, those who come, some will stay, and some will go just as fast. There will those who slowly and steadily climb, and those who just plod along in the same space for as long as you know them, that’s all OK, it’s their journey.
Blogging is so personal, the journey is so specific that no one else’s will ever be like yours. It’s yours alone, you have fans they are cheering on the sidelines, they are your readers. Can you hear it, that’s the sound of someone leaving you a comment.
And just when you think that you have it all figured out, the rules might change… your direction, your theme, your thought process might shift, and you will see the world from a different perspective, and that’s fine too.
Because there are as many or more readers as there are blogs, and they will find you and stick with you.
Blog on newbie blogger, blog on. Please add any advice you would have given to your newbie blogging self in your comments, we all need to read those encouraging words no matter where we are in our journey.
And I hate to disappoint anyone, but these are old images of spring bulbs, we are a long, long way from seeing anything green around here.
Jane