This Blog Thing

My senior year is coming to an end. So I’ve started to wonder about this blog and where it’s going. I really want to continue writing. It’s been very therapeutic. Writing these posts, I mean. I don’t always explain, face to face with someone in conversation, my exact, complete thoughts and this blog has been good for that. I can talk about how I’m feeling or what I’ve been thinking about lately and not get interrupted--rather selfish of me I know. But it’s so nice to express my thoughts without someone butting in with their own opinions and advice thinking it’s their turn to contribute to the conversation. You know how it is--you’ll talk a little and then they’ll talk a little taking turns back and forth. And I’m not under the pressure to write an entire story, or a book for that matter.

The thing is there are so many things I could write about. There’s just one problem--they come in bursts. I want to be able to write posts when I have my writing bursts. If I’m not at the computer writing it down as I think it, it gets lost. I don’t have a laptop which would really help things. I’m getting one this fall though :D :D !!!

So many times I lose ideas, can’t get down my complete thought, or don’t write the exact way I wanted to say something simply because my brain works too fast. I have a notebook to write in if I can’t access the computer, but I don’t know if I’m just a slow writer or if things just come to me so much faster than I can write them down. Even at the computer, I can get lost. I’ll start typing out a sentence and then continue thinking and expand, expand, expand, until I remember that I have an unfinished sentence and I totally forgot how it went. And then, just like that, I'll forget the details of the paragraph or so that I’d written in my head. As you can tell, I’ve had a lot of unfinished thoughts.

Or, things go unfinished--or at least not to my liking--because it’s an assignment and I don’t have the time to stop, take a step back, mull it over in my brain, come back to it, and figure out the best way to convey my meaning. And when something is done, it’s done. Handing it in and having somebody read it kills all incentive to go back and straighten it all out--unless of course it’s a first draft and I have to redo it.

Right now, my blog is my voice unread. No one reads these words flowing out of my fingers right now. Well, maybe three...and my class is forced to, but even that is being optimistic. But I like it that way. I don’t want to expand, optimize, monetize my blog prematurely. This is my last assigned post--which is a “whatever you want.” I want to be consistently writing posts on my own before I have the world--possibly--reading them. I guess I'm just cautious like that because I hate failing myself.

So, I hope I will continue on, but for a little while it might just be here and there. I'm not promising anything.

Successful Blogging

I just started my blog, and to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it. For the second semester of my high school creative writing class, we’re writing a blog. The assignment is to post once a week and sometimes the topics are assigned too; like this one. I’m learning about how to write a successful blog by using a book called Publishing a Blog with Blogger. I like it; it's uber helpful.

There are two types of people who start a blog: those who want to make money, and those who just want to write.  I’m the latter.  Maybe in the future I might want to monetize my blog; who doesn’t want to make a little cash?  But don’t buy into thinking you can just write a blog and be successful and rich right away.  It’s not that easy.  It takes time, motivation, and research.  It’ll be awhile to write enough content to get regular visitors other than your friends and family.  Writing a blog that’s successful is so different than what I thought.  Right now, I don’t have a “niche” for my blog; one topic that I always write about.  I didn’t want to limit myself in case I have a period of major writer’s block.  I always thought blogging was writing whatever pops into your head.  And that’s exactly what I’m doing right now, writing what pops into my head, (just random things that people can relate to) or whatever I’m assigned.  Right now, I only have time to post once a week.

For my blog, my success is achieving a personal goal: to write consistently.  In fact, I don’t even care if anyone outside family and friends reads this.  It would be cool, but it’s not my priority...for now.  I’m no where close to having a “successful” blog (as in having many readers and earning money from it) so I did a little research on some tips that myself and other fellow bloggers should read.