The Art Of Blogging For 17 Years (And 3 Reasons I Continue)

They say after you've so-called "hit it big", as in getting signed by a major publishing company or make the New York Times Best Sellers list, most writers become more inwardly drawn, lessen their posts, make them blander or either stop blogging altogether.

Either way, if you've been a long time subscriber to my blog, you know that I have always spoken very boldly about why I will always continue to blog, and If you stay sat for a moment, I'll share why and fully intend to inspire you If you have a love for writing as well. If you are a person that finds interest in what many bloggers speak about, it's a near cliche that every home page of a blogger starts rattling on about how they were a bored mother and just started blogging as a way to escape. It's probably true, but I don't think most start for that reason. I think many of the mums began blogging because they wanted to feel significant. Because let's face it, most women that were like me when blogging first became popular was because we were looking for a payoff and hoping and praying we'd get discovered like Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman.

Regardless, I wanted to talk about what blogging means to me and what I will bang on about probably for the rest of my days whilst being landlocked.

This blog is relatively new because I had to start from scratch, but even though this blog began in 2017, I have been blogging since 2004. 

I consider this blog very much a part of me; it truly is my diary online. As long as I've known how to form a sentence, I have written my feelings down. Not because I necessarily always know what to write, but the words lead me where I must go. I write to resolve thoughts or concepts, beliefs, really everything. I write to make sense of my world. I know you've heard me say that about a gazillion times, but for me, it's as accurate as can be. It's the sprat to catch the mackerel.

This blog is my mothership. It's home to me; it's where I feel safe. Just as most feel safe on land, I feel safe in the sea of the interweb. It may sound quite mad, but that's how I see my world and my blog/writing. I get downright giddy when I see my logo pop up on the screen. In the wee hours of the morning, I am all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to write to you.

So allow me to tell you the three reasons I continue to blog:

I. Leave A Legacy

As a young child and even still today, I have this notion that when I am long gone from this earth, someone will stumble upon my writings, journals and books and be thrilled to bits to have a piece of history. Perhaps many writers feel this way. We are leaving a bread crumb trail for future generations. I was reminded of this a few months ago when I read the hand-typed lectures of Neville Goddard. Have not those pages been preserved, we wouldn't have such excellent information, nor his many books. Honestly, one of my blog posts might not mean that much, but If you were to compile my blog posts in their entirety, it would be considered my lifes work. In fact, I have entries that I have written and left in my draft file because I plan to use them as chapters in my books. You get a great understanding of who someone is if they are an avid writer/blogger. You begin to know a person when they keep an active blog. You just do. That's why so many folks feel as though they know someone that owns a blog because writers are constantly revealing themselves in their work whether they realise it or not.

II. The Figuring Out Of What To Say

Here's how Beatrix Potter put it, and I couldn't agree more.  

 "There's something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you."

For such a long time, I felt like I was mentally screaming for others to hear me when I was writing, yet no one did. I had this belief that was ingrained in me from childhood that it's lovely for everyone else to have success and be famous best selling authors, but deep down, I wasn't good enough. Oh, sure, I can act as if, but in those scant moments of when my mental wobble of "not feeling worthy enough" crept in, I was back to putting everything in my life, including my writing back down on the bottom of the totem pole. In the last several months, I have grown immensely in obtaining my sealegs. I know my thoughts were what was creating my wobble, and assumptions will override every single time. I learned this about myself because of writing a blog and keeping a journal. I no longer place anyone else on the pedestal. I am the one on the pedestal, and until we can get to that place of feeling we are the hero in our own story, we will never become what we truly desire. It's just that simple.

III. I Adore It!

Unlike some writers, I know that I want to say something, but sometimes not know how to say it. That's when I bang on and on and then condense it down. It has much to do with me feeling unheard as a child, and now I want to share what I think. It's such a fun process. All of it, because I know the more I write, the better and more beautiful I become as a writer. I love it so much, so it never feels like effort. 

Things come easy when we love something. I am always amazed at how some folks have such a love for cooking. I know it's because they love it, which creates within them, just like me as a writer, a discipline.

If I have a subject or an idea I want to bang on about, I stay sat and click clickity away on the keyboard. I then feel as though my mind and heart has done almost a form of purging. I publish the post so the world can read what I think about and what I believe—There's something lovely in that feeling. 

So, indeed I will continue blogging because I adore it and because, as Andrew Belle put it, "You're in my veins, and I cannot get you out!"

Have a happy day!