My wonderful, much-loved blog

I didn’t forget to do Fashion Friday yesterday. I was just too tired. I fell asleep quite early, and woke up at 1am to find myself lying down on the couch, my phone somewhere under me, still in the Doctor Who shirt I had worn to work.

I have noticed that I get headaches when I sleep in. I usually sleep in on the weekends but I despise waking up after 10am. It’s almost criminal for me. I can’t really feel much guilt when I’ve been waking up really early for work, though. Sometimes you need a sleep-in on Saturday morning.

I’m used to waking at 6am, but it’s not something my body can take long-term if I’m not sleeping by midnight. I definitely knock back and forth when it comes to sleeping, and I’ve decided that I hate being a night owl and love watching the sun rise… but after a bit of thought, I think sometimes I love both the day and the night. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I have to make sure I get my sleep.

Last week I said I would be trying to do Fashion Friday every Friday, doing some non-outfit posts every other week. When I woke up and realised I missed Friday, I just thought, “Ah, oh well. That’s alright.” I had read Manda’s post yesterday about how blogging is her hobby, not her job, and recalled the times I felt like my blog had turned into a chore.

A few years ago, I ran a tutorial website, chock-full of WordPress tutorials, HTML tutorials, and tutorials on how to use certain scripts. I made pixel art graphics that people admired. I then worked my way into making other graphics. I made WordPress themes because people demanded them. I made really ugly textures and patterns because everyone else was doing it. I wrote blog posts that had questions for the readers to answer, just to make lots of people leave comments. I looked at my stats a lot, and checked if I had received more comments or followers. I reviewed websites. I wrote three hundred reviews in a year, one being 10,000 words long. I analysed people’s websites when I reviewed them, criticised them, tried to be funny, and was sometimes just really mean. It was what people wanted.

I had twenty websites at one point, each for a different purpose. I separated my poetry from my blog and my avatar creations from my fanlistings, making so many blogs for various purposes because they didn’t feel “right” being in the one place. The rise of social media made it easier to promote, and thus made blogging a less fun activity. Things like Tumblr took over, as well as other platforms that made it easy to share things. Then I would get caught up in the reblogs, likes, favourites, followers…

It honestly took a lot of guts to pretty much stop giving a fuck. Having a lot of followers on Tumblr didn’t mean half as much as the awesome people I had met while blogging. Getting comments on my blog posts that were just endless replies was also nothing, compared to the really insightful comments I get on my posts now. Why did I care about Google Analytics. Why did it matter that I got 300 unique hits a day. It was nothing I wanted to brag about compared to how much I like writing. I’ll forever be proud to say I love writing, but there will never be a valid reason to tell people that I get a certain amount of hits.

Admittedly, working as a web developer for several clients and now working on one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world has made me revert to thinking about stats and growth.

But not for my blog. When I moved from Heartdrops.org to Hey Georgie, I stopped writing tutorials just for people. I stopped caring as much about the number of comments on my blog. I stopped bothering to look at statistics. I don’t write things for anyone, or to get more hits or become more popular or liked by people. I write because I love to write.

I love my blog to pieces. Every flaw in my old pieces of writing, every over-emotional bit of poetry, every idiotic hate comment that I may have kept or deleted, every post with overused emoticons from 2009, embarrassing things I might have written, really lame exclamations that sound so unlike me, super-long posts that people probably TLDR’d, screenshots of ugly designs I used to make, amusing tutorials, posts that people liked, hated, commented on. I may have failed in some parts, but there is no denying that I have always loved my blog.

When I meet people, one of the first things they’ll know about me is that I love to write, and that I blog. When people ask me, “What do you blog about?”, I hesitate, because I know they’re thinking I have a travel blog, or a fashion blog, or I review things… the look of confusion when I say “anything… it’s a personal blog I guess” is always a tad more than irritating.

Next time, I’ll answer with, “Whatever I want.”

Comments on this post

Aww I loved this post, brought back memories for sure.

It’s always great to look back. I used to be the same way – would check my stats daily and if I wasn’t getting up to a certain amount I’d get worried. I’d leave pointless, silly comments on peoples’ websites to get a comment back and I’d also do the question thing at the end of my post for extra comments haha. In terms of graphics, I kept them up on my website for ages and ages because I knew that people used them, but I stopped enjoying creating them and writing tutorials way way before..

It’s funny how much things change, now I blog when I what, about what I want and actually really enjoy what I do. Buttt I guess that’s the point of life, you learn and grow, definitely wouldn’t take anything back. :)

I despise waking up after 10am too! I feel as if I already “wasted” a good amount of the day by sleeping way too much, but there are those few times when it’s acceptable.

A lot of people used to do all of those reviews, tutorials, resources, and everything else alongside with their blogs. It was that trendy thing to do back then. I was the same too- but moreso on the tutorial/articles side since I tossed out that “reviews” idea a month or two into doing it. Since I started college, I started caring less and less about the other things on my site besides blogging like what people comment, what a blogroll/link exchange has, and etc.

I think it’s a good thing, because you do what you want to do for yourself instead of pleasing other people. That “personal blog” should pretty much sum up the fact that it’s anything you please. :)

Wow, I can’t believe you were doing so much at once. I used to have lazily and a few group blogs but that was really it.
I really loved both yours and Amanda’s posts because it does sem like bogging has changed so much in the last 5 or so years and become this massive industry which seems to suck out the fun.

Maybe one day the popularity of Pinterest will die down and people will go back to posting for themselves rather than pins on a board.

People are so demanding in whatever the task may be at hand. However, I would have just said “One thing at a time! I’m only human.” And went on about my business. You are a gem, and you know this! I do remember those days were you spent countless hours reviewing, doing tutorials, helping (and still helping) people, working and going to college, having your-time out from every day hustle and bustle stuff. Yet, here you are! All grown up!

When we were younger, we honestly cared way to much about being popular, and how many likes or comments we get. Yes, it was nice and all, but at the same time…it still felt like a chore to reply back to everyone’s comments. It somewhat took the fun out of blogging. At least for me anyways. I used to care about getting comments, as I would love to hear from my friends and online bloggers. Now, I just go “Eh, who cares?” I still like hearing from my blogging friends, and occasionally receive a comment or two. I’m not gonna lie. But, because I’m older and wiser — I just don’t care anymore about being popular.

Blogging has changed dramatically over the years. From personal life, to advice, to whatever. I think maybe only a couple of people do blog about their personal lives. Nowadays, people don’t really blog much about their personal lives. And I’m glad. I think it was more of a way to brag about what happened to John Doe or Jane Doe. Ya know what I mean? We were immature back then, and didn’t really know what to blog about. But, I’m glad we had matured and grew up!

I remember when blogs and personal websites were categorised differently because of all the content. Admittedly, I disappeared from the blogosphere for a long time because I was tired of writing content that didn’t make sense– I was sure someone else out there did it better. Websites felt like a chore, not a hobby.

I still don’t appreciate people who try to stick me into a category when it comes to blog. Let’s write whatever we want, whenever we want! :) I’m focused on quality and not quantity, and I’m glad that you’re doing the same.

x
Christa

I hear ya Christa! I, admittedly, left the blogging world as well. Why? I felt that I was making blogging into a chore. Blogging should be for fun, not a chore! God only knows how much we have to around the house. We don’t need to add another to the list. Though, that was for awhile. I recently came back, because life has finally picked up again.

I honestly think that we get to caught up with trying to be popular. I think that we tried so hard, and when we failed, we just gave up entirely. Those that stuck out from the rest, knew exactly what the audience wanted to read. And therefore; became popular.

The blogging atmosphere has changed dramatically. No one is blogging about their personal life as much, and to be honest, I like this quite a lot. It felt to me as it were a competition to see what the other person was doing through out the weeks. And it also felt that it was moreso; a bragging right. No one likes a bragger. But, I’m glad that the blogging world has changed. It changed for the better.

When ever I get asked about what I blog about I have a hard time trying to explain. I literally blog about everything and anything because I don’t want to specialise in just one subject.

Like you I removed the vast majority of content from my website when I decided to focus on blogging and writing great posts. I made a lot of poor quality graphics just to try and fit it with what everyone else was doing. Now, looking back, it makes me cringe.

I agree with you. Keeping a blog shouldn’t feel like just another chore we need to do. It should be something that we can use to express ourselves , that is what i feel. I could never fit into the trend that goes on blogs. So, when people ask me what my blog is about, I usually say, it’s about what I feel like writing, so it varies from books, to food, to anything else!

I remember when you had 20 something blogs & I told you how crazy you were for having so many damn domains because it meant more stress! Crazy woman. I’m glad you’ve narrowed it down to things that don’t stress you out. Not saying that all those things you had before weren’t hobbies of yours, but it’s like there’s just too much going on in your life to be handling 20+ domains! You can just tell people that you’re a lifestyle blog, I mean because that’s what “everything/whatever I want” really is. I know I shifted what I wanted my blog to be & I’m happy with the direction it’s going in. It’s nice to see that you’re happier now with your blog than you were before in which you felt like it’s a chore.

I find it hard to network with other people in my food niche because…well, I don’t know what it is about these people, but they never come say hi to you on your turf. Oh well. I have to say I like this layout much better than your previous ones, so your design skills are constantly improving & that’s definitely something to be proud of when you look back at old blogging days. Definitely a nice way to look back & think on how much you’ve grown as a person.

I think you still have an awesome following of “real” people (me included, muahaha) even though foodies don’t seem to socialise. You still have people outside of that niche who dig your posts. Maybe those guys are either intimidated or snobby… who knows. I’m thrilled with where you’ve taken your blog, to be honest. I love it. You still keep in touch with everyone as well, which is awesome.

I definitely feel myself improving design-wise and “fitting” with my blog more, it’s crazy how much can change in a few years. :)

Thank you for reminding me why I blogged in the first place. God, I’ve been feeling so robotic with my blog lately because I stopped blogging about what I wanted to blog about. I guess I was scared to send my opinions out into the world, which is so unlike me.

Thanks for the comment! I think I should just write and whatever comes out, just post it! I think I get caught up in the idea of that I ‘need’ to post.

Also, I can’t believe you had 20 blogs at once. How did you manage to keep them up? I struggle with just 1…