Last Sunday, I completed one year of blogging on WordPress. This post should really have been published on that day, but well, that’s okay. Happy belated blogiversary to me! Haha!
Yesterday, I read a very relevant post for us bloggers on my friend Annie’s blog. You should totally check it out. The post reflected on things that have been on my mind for a long time now: Can you have it all at a given point in life?
Take my example. Within this year of blogging, I have published posts that expressed my irritation at being followed by people who did not coming back again to read my posts. In the same year, I, who had been a religious follower on WordPress reader, have gone into hibernation mode now and then, vanishing now and surfacing weeks later to read what my favourite bloggers wrote. So what happened between that blog-post and now? Well, life did.
Reflecting on the posts I have shared throughout this one year, I realize that when I began, I was a insensitive little woman, a complaining teenager. Tt took me a year, a journey across the country to become an adult.
When I started this blog, I was in the last semester of college, with the dreams of publishing a book in my eyes. The idea behind starting this blog was crude – just because every other writer had a blog, I had to have one too. But a year of life and blogging journey has matured and refined me.
In this year, I have had more than 200 wonderful people following me. I have made a couple of awesome blogger friends who keep boosting my spirits now and then. A lot of people have reached out to me saying that my post about magazines to publish short stories/poems have helped them a lot.
I have had my share of negative experiences too. One fine morning, when I was on a bus, I found a notification on the WordPress app on my phone that a lady had accused me of publishing plagiarized content in a guest post on my blog. Until then, I never sieved the guest posts that I received for plagiarism. But that incident taught me that when I was sharing something on a public domain, it became my responsibility to check if it contained plagiarized content, be it my own writing or someone else’s.
So what has this year of blogging taught me?
- Anything can happen in life, be prepared for both the nice and not-so-nice experiences.
- It is really not about how many likes your posts get. As long as it is engaging people, even if that is just one person, the blog post is successful
- Blogging with the aim of being followed and read by every follower you get is a stupid idea. Understand that people have priorities in life. They are probably taking time between their busy work schedule, or caring for the crying baby to read the blogs they follow. So unless you have a really engaging post, they might really not want to read it.
- It is okay to be missing from blogosphere once in a while. Like my friend Annie correctly pointed out, if you’re not on the blogospace, then you probably are somewhere where you need to be at that time. And there is no reason why you should feel guilty about it.
I’d like to take this time to thank every single person who’s been kind enough to visit this blog and leave their footprints. Thank you for every single of your likes, comments and shares. I am grateful for every smile that you guys have given me. I hope I will be able to publish more engaging posts in the times to come.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to ask you all to follow me on my other blog, Bangalore Diaries. Given that I spend a good portion of my day-to-day life working in the analytics industry and then, trying to get my life in order, (because as you know, living alone miles away from your family is really not easy), I often have thoughts to share which are unrelated to books/writing/reading. Hence, I refrain from sharing this thoughts here on this blog. In the coming days, the plan is to write more travellogues on Bangalore Diaries, which I’d like you all to be a part of. So, do visit me on Bangalore Diaries and shared your thoughts with me. Because most of my life is happening beyond the books now!
Scribbles@Arpita 