Check me out, ya'll! I am on a roll. Three posts in one day! Try to contain yourselves. (Oh, don't worry. I am still getting plenty done on The Great Purge and Pack of 2007. But a mama's gotta take a break, especially when she is besieged by painless but plentiful Braxton Hicks contractions.)
So many of my fave bloggers are participating in Chilihead's Blogging Story Carnival that I just had to add my little story to the fray. Here goes!
How did you start blogging?
I am looking back at my first post and remembering that originally I just wanted a place in which I could write. I am a frustrated, lazy writer, and I think at the time I thought if only I had a space to write, oh surely the magic would just flow forth from my fingers.
I chose Blogger because I am big, fat HTML dummy and even before the New! Improved! Blogger! was rolled out, it was really easy to work with.
Did you intend to be a blog w/a big following? If so, how did you go about it?
Not at all. I don't think I even told anyone about it for months. I think my readership is about ten or twelve people at any given time, but having a big readership is not a goal for me. The handful of readers who do read faithfully are mostly all a part of my mommy boards. I do put my blog address in my signatures on the various and sundry message boards I post on . . . perhaps in hopes of picking up a few readers here and there? At this point, it's not a priority.
What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
Such a pivotal question for me right now!
Originally, I just wanted to have an outlet to write and place where I could blather on about how much I love to practice natural family living. But in the past few weeks, I have given much thought to taking SortaCrunchy in a new direction.
So I think I have been successful in doing lots of babbling without any direction or real purpose; however, I am going to need a more concrete, well-thought-out plan to see my new vision for SortaCrunchy actually take shape and come to life.
Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?
Not too much, for now. When I got pregnant, I obviously added in more preggo talk than I had expected to, but I've tried to stick to the parenting focus.
Again, I am at a point where I want and need a change of focus and direction . . . just not sure of what that will look like.
What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
One of the most fun and rewarding ways to bring traffic to your blog is to read other blogs and leave comments. Even if that person only stops by once, it's still fun to know someone is reading your posts! And like I said, it's really rewarding to allow yourself to build little friendships in the blogging community. Quite warm and fuzzy.
Do you make money with your blog?
No. I don't understand how all that blogads stuff works and it kind of gets me overstimulated just thinking about it. So no.
Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?
My sister and husband both know I have a blog, but I am confident neither has read it. I have sent them the URL, but I think they were probably both bored to tears. Someday I may share the blog with my sister-in-law, but I don't think anyone else would be too terribly interested.
What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?
As I said above, you will find all sorts of fun, thoughtful, witty, and inspiring blogs out there when you just click around. Read all you can and leave comments!
And try to set a reasonable goal for how much you will write. I try to blog at least once a week, but then there are days like today when I can get three posts in! For right now, I don't think daily entries is a workable goal for me - but it's something to work up to. Having a minimum posting goal really helped me give the ol' blog at least a little TLC every week.
