CXLII: The Ebbs and Flows of Blogging

Every once in a while I like to write about my blogging experience as it stands. This time around, I figured that it’d be fun to write about the ups and downs, the pushes and pulls and the WTFs and the OMGs of blogging.

WRITING AND READABILITY

For me, writing is generally fun! I write what I feel, what I experience, and what is most prominent on my mind. I, of course, ended up tired of the whole pandemic rhetoric and ended up taking a hiatus altogether, but largely, my writing is shaped by my experiences.

Lately, however, I’ve found that a lot of what the world is actually reading is not necessarily what I write about. With the takeover of the social media generation on social media, I feel that a lot of our audiences are changing. The things that they want to see are more materialistic than they were before. They are the generation of the tagline — they literally refuse to read more than 5 words into a story. Now, don’t call this an attack but call it an observation!

I’ve noticed that it’s hard to get anyone to glance longer than a couple of seconds at something that’s not a flattering, scantily-clad photograph of a male or a female. As someone who prefers to be taking the photographs and as someone who doesn’t feel the need to attract the type of attention that one gets while half-naked on social media, there’s a big difficulty presented by this reality.

Although my focus lately has been my book reviews, I’ve found myself also presented with the problem of staying true to myself/my writing and keeping posts that are readable and relevant.

PHOTO/VIDEO BOYCOTTS

It would appear as though I’ve spent my whole blogging career boycotting and avoiding photographs. When I started, I had a photograph-ready teammate that I could capture in different looks and with different items that I could then write about.

Nowadays, I just find it so hard to get anything done that requires a camera that it’s ridiculous. I’m so hypercritical of my work that none of the pictures that I take are good enough for me to then write about.

I do always say though that I will make more of an effort to take more pictures and then I glue my cameras to me wherever I go. But, I’m going to try just using my iPhone for a while and see how those photographs come out. I might as well work on getting my money’s worth on these expensive phones, right?

KEEPING AN AUDIENCE & KNOWING WHEN YOU’RE DONE

I’m putting these two together because truly feel as though they go together. I used to get emails weekly about how much my words meant to them or got them through a tough time. I used to hear countless times that people loved my honesty and my jagged edges. But, over time and as my content changes while I attempt to branch out, I hear less and less about my words being helpful, useful or as service.

In my opinion, when your words aren’t helping, teaching or healing, then you should just be quiet! So that thought alone has had me juggling with the idea of moving on from the blogging world instead of trying to keep up with my audience.

LET’S CLOSE…

I still love this crazy and uncertain blogging journey that I am on. I miss the days of having a quiet space and an at-peace mind with which to create and I’m also excited for all of the Chaos Creating that I’ve been doing.

To close, even with all of the ups and downs along with the uncertainty, blogging is still exciting! It’s opened so many doors for me, it’s encouraged me to be at least minimally social and it’s been a little baby of mine that I’ve been able to watch grow.

Got questions about blogging? Feel free to ask! I don’t claim to know it all, but I know at least three years worth of information that could be useful to another.