.My Blogging Journey And Why I Decided To Share It
You guys may remember but a while back I took a survey and asked you guys what you wanted see here. And I got so many amazing responses. Some people suggested that I should write about my blogging journey over the last six years. I thought this was a really great idea and a while back I did a sort of mini throwback post where I used a site to help me see what lifesfinewhine looked like back in the day and how it’s changed over the years. I got a lot of great comments on that and also some asking to elaborate about my blogging journey.
It actually turns out people had asked me to write a post about that two years ago as well. I had started to but for some reason never published the post (I probably forgot lol). But everything happens for a reason and I’m glad I didn’t publish that one because not much had changed two years ago but I have made a lot of upgrades, changes and updates over the last year or so. I have way more to talk about now. So anyway, I’ve decided to write six posts on my blogging journey.
Since I began blogging almost exactly six years ago (it will officially be six years in about a month) I thought I would write one post per year talking about my blogging journey during that year as well as what was going on with my life and how it effected my blogging. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy sharing it with you guys and I hope it helps newer bloggers as well because as I mentioned I will definitely be sharing more technical stuff about WordPress too.
2015- Where It All Began
This is kind of the origin story of lifesfinewhine except maybe not quite as exciting…
I always knew I wanted to write- like always. A lot of kids when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up don’t know or will say something like “I want to be a princess” but not me. I was always like “I want to be a vet and also write books.” Obviously both those things worked out perfectly for me since I have written absolutely no books so far and am getting a degree in History (that’s what vets get right??).
Anyway, I always knew that when I grew up I wanted to write and by the time I was in my last year of high school I realised that I kept saying I want to write but I hadn’t actually written anything and that was super terrifying for me. As a teenager one of your worst fears is becoming a lame adult who settles for a job they hate and I felt like that’s the path I was on for some reason- obviously I was being super irrational but I was much younger and MUCH stupider back then.
Mental Health
This was also the time when my anxiety and depression were pretty bad and that really did not help. I was struggling with my mental health, being a full time student and just being me in general. And, I really needed an outlet and I was desperate to write. I tried a bunch of sites but nothing seemed to fit just right and I was getting increasingly frustrated. I felt like I had not achieved how much I had expected to achieve by 18 and it was really eating away at me.
So, I talked to someone who was a close friend at the time and she suggested that I try out blogging as she was also blogging back then and she was really enjoying it. Therefore, I decided to give it a shot and eventually after ignoring my initial anxiety started looking for names for a blog. I hate to admit this but I just went on Google and used one of those sites that help you create a name for your blog. I looked through a few names and thought lifesfinewhine sounded okay-ish so I decided to “give it a try.”
My First Niche
At this time my blog was supposed to be like my diary where I would rant about stuff. And talk about things I find interesting. Which was mainly anything to do with psychology back then. That’s why I thought lifesfinewhine kind of worked because it had the words “life” and “whine” on it. I think more than anything I knew this would mainly be an outlet for me and I really did not expect it to grow as much as it has now. Yes, I hoped it would grow over time but never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that it would grow this much and this fast.
With a lot of help and guidance from a friend I set up my blog and dealt with all the technicalities. Firstly, I’m awful at technology so I had to learn how to create a blog, write a draft, save the draft, publish the draft and blah blah blah. People think creating a blog is easy but let me tell you it is the furthest thing from easy. It is so difficult and complicated especially if you’re not good with computers/technology.
Lifesfinewhine Was Born
And so lifesfinewhine was born. This is what it looked like back then. Simple, plain and kind of perfect for what I was going for back then. Over time I knew that I wanted to change the look of my blog but back then I really liked this look and thought it was simple but really amazing.
My first post was a serious hassle. I typed it, retyped it, edited it like a million times till I had pretty much retyped it again and then edited it some more. It about what I was learning in my psychology class which was the psychology behind cults. I was so nervous to press publish but I finally hit the publish button, logged out and had massive anxiety for like half an hour. Nothing compares to the feeling you get when you publish your first post and you’re all excited and nervous and scared. I loved it and also simultaneously hated it.
No One Cares, Lol
Also nothing compares to the shock you get when you realise there are thousands of bloggers out there and that no one really cares about your posts as much as you do. I know it’s a harsh thing to say but it’s true. WP has one of the most caring, supportive and amazing communities on the Internet which is shocking when you compare it to what other platforms on the Internet are like but it is also very much a two way street which I did not know back then but began picking up on.
So, basically I got very few views, likes and about two comments. One from a friend and one from my sister. I was slightly discouraged but I was still enthusiastic. I think even back then I kind of knew that this was going to become a thing in my life and that blogging was something I needed to stick with. So, I kept trying my best and published about 40 posts that year. All at random times when I felt like it. Again they did not get many views, likes, comments and shares. I did not get many follows either.
Overtime
But at the same time blogging started to become more interesting and fun. I started writing poetry again, sharing my inner most thoughts and feelings. It was kind of like therapy but in a way better- mostly because it was free lol… Anyway, over time the blogging anxiety became less and less and the blogging happiness became more and more. By the end of 2015 I was actually much more into the idea of blogging more. And perhaps even regularly- like once a week. I was still a full time student but I was using my free time on working on my posts. My friends were super supportive and sweet about it which was really nice. But not surprising because they’re super awesome.
In a way this blog really saved me. More than anything it brought the spark back into my dull, repetitive life. It gave me an outlet, ambition, drive and a new goal- to write again. I will be publishing the next part of this post next week. It will deal with my blogging journey in 2016. So stay tuned for that. I know this post is a bit long. But I have so many fond memories of this blog and how it all started. And I really wanted to share all this with you guys. Also I do have a tendency to ramble… or should I say whine…
You can check out my posts from back in 2015 if you’re interested by clicking here.
Thoughts
I hope you guys enjoyed this slightly longer and more personal blog. Did you relate to some of the things I mentioned in the post? Did you have a similar journey when you first started blogging? What was your blogging journey like? Are you glad you started blogging? If you’ve been blogging for a while now has your blog changed over the years? Did anything about my blogging journey surprise you or stand out to you? Let me know in the comments below I would love to hear your thoughts and about your personal blogging journey!
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