I promised my friend Dianne a honest post after reading her great post on selling things online (go read it!) However, this isn't the first time I've written this post, I made a start on it last week and it was a pretty good post, I think a lot of you would have related and I was pleased with the result... mostly. I say mostly because even though it summed up a lot of what I was thinking, it still felt disjointed, strung together. Saying the right things but in the wrong order. Or maybe the not quite right things in the not quite wrong order.
And even though a lot of what I wrote was honest... It was mostly just a sum of all the things I've said before. I've been doing this - blogging - for a while now. You start to repeat yourself. "Blogging is weird" "Blogging is awesome"... "Blogging is ultimately what you make it". All things I've said before and all things I'm sure you've heard too. In fact if you've been blogging for a while like me, then you've seen alienated bloggers before, you've seen people writing about the 'good ole days' and the demise of blogging. Heck I even wrote a free book covering topics no one talks about in blogging to try and help people out two years ago.
The truth is that what I think about blogging is still the same as its always been, everything in my book still applies now and thats why I'm still here after nearly 7 years. And I know not everyone feels as enthusiastically as I do and that's ok, that is what makes the blogging world so great - the differences and the choice of blogs you can read. The opportunity to find your people is there.
But I didn't post my post last week. Something about it didn't feel right. And I've been mulling it over as to why and last night I figured it out.
What I think about the blogosphere is still the same. But how I feel about my blog, about what I want to say and how I want to say it - that has changed. And not for the worse. I still want to be here. But I don't want to be saying the same thing over and over again. Not any more. I want to say something fresh. I want to be excited to be here. I want to make this space more my own than its ever been before.
For the last ten days I've taken at least two film photos a day. I've never done that before. And ten days isn't a long time I know, but everything feels different somehow (and potentially more expensive haha, so many rolls of film to develop this year already) I don't want to say the nearly right things in the nearly right order and be pleased jsut because it provokes a response (even if it was a pretty good post) Instead, I want to inspire and encourage, create and share. I want real and genuine. And I'm not going to get that from you if I don't put it out there to start with.
I want this year to be different somehow - I don't know how or what that means for me or if anyone else will see the differences in this space. And I used to be scared of that, scared of not knowing, scared of people not liking me, scared of being too 'this' or too 'that'. But I'm not so scared now. In fact Im oddly excited to see where this path takes me. Because I already know I've done the hardest work in getting myself to this point... Now I just have to keep moving on and see where I go.
So what does feel right for my blog this year?
Writing more. I've been journalling and meditating every day as well this year and the cluttering thoughts are still there (its only been ten days no ones expecting miracles lol) but the meaningful thoughts, the ones that feel right. They seem to be getting through more now and they want to come out more too. This post just flowed... No editing, no making it work, no trying to figure out which order something 'should' be in. Just the right words this time and amazingly in the right order. And that feels so good.
Keep it simple. No ebooks this year - just good old fashioned blog posts. I don't have time for anything else for one but also, I just want to share my photos and write some things occasionally. And that is ok. Other people are pushing, selling, promoting etc and I still think that is great - blogging has so much potential to do amazing things that just weren't around 7 years ago when I started but right now that's not for me. And thats totally ok.
Show up. I've been putting in half the effort for a while - mainly because I kept thinking I needed to be doing more somehow rather than just doing things. And I'm not pleased with that. This year I shall show up.
Enjoy it. Blogging shouldn't be a chore. (Unless its your job, then its work and woo, you're getting paid to blog.) But this is my free time and like I said in my goals post for the year, I want to be spending time this year on things I enjoy doing.
So there we go, that was much longer than I expected but shorter than last weeks post amazingly. I'm excited to see where the year takes us - both in terms of my blog and the blogging world as a whole :)
