Confessions of a First Year Blogger

One year ago today, I published the first entry in my blog. I was new to this whole blogging world (although I was actually late to the scene, with so many people already doing it).

It’s been fun so far, although it has brought with it some challenges.

I have discovered that it’s much harder to blog regularly than I thought.  I assumed it would be no problem for me to sit down once or twice a week and tap out an interesting story on the keyboard. It turns out I am busier than I gave myself credit for!  

It can also be tricky to get an entire blog out of a small event – a lot of funny or unusual things happen in my house that I would love to share with the world, but they can often be described in only a few short sentences and it’s hard to stretch it out into something really worth reading.

On the other hand, sometimes there are subjects I could write an essay on … which I’m pretty certain no-one would bother reading.  I know if I am checking out somebody else’s blog I prefer it to be short and sweet. I don’t have time to sit and read other people’s essays either!

Sometimes it's tricky to know whether I should write about serious subjects, or focus on humour. I have tried to do both, with some entries being more serious and others being just about some random funny moment that I thought was worth sharing.

It has been an interesting exercise in learning how to write so that what I’m saying makes sense. Adding information where necessary and removing words (or even entire sentences) that just clog up the story. Taking the time to proofread what I’ve written and figure out what works and what doesn’t before I click ‘Publish’. I'm sure it is all good practice for when I get around to writing that novel I keep threatening.

I am enjoying blogging and will definitely continue. I'll probably never be one of those bloggers who makes money out of it, or gets famous (who'd want that anyway?), but it's fun.  I love when things happen and I immediately think, 'That would make a great blog'. Of course, there are also plenty of things that I wouldn't blog about - it is important to keep a level of privacy and not fall into the trap of just treating it like a private diary (after all, the internet is forever!).  

Blogging gives a whole new perspective on everyday life and I would encourage anyone to give it a go.

It's also nice to be able to look back over the year and see what I have written about my family and our adventures through the past 12 months.  I can’t wait to see what we get up to in the next 12 ...