Ten years ago I started a blog.
In the decade that followed my first terrible post (which disappeared in a blog clean-up some years ago), I have written hundreds and hundreds of blog posts as this blog morphed from being a daily blog about Life In A Pink Fibro into an author blog as I shared my (then) career as a freelance writer and my journey into becoming a published author of children’s fiction.
I’ve really struggled with writing this post. In the past, I’ve celebrated my blogging anniversary with posts about things I’ve learned about blogging in that year. I’ve listed them all at the end of this post so you can follow the whole journey.
I dallied with crowdsourcing the post by posting a Facebook callout, where regular readers shared their most memorable posts with me. Here are a few:
6 tips for getting back into the swing with your writing
You will never find time to write your novel
But at the end of the day, I’ve decided that I’m going to do two things to celebrate this milestone.
- Share the biggest thing I’ve learned about blogging in 10 years.
- Share MY favourite posts from 10 years of blogging.
Brace yourselves.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned about blogging in 10 years
So, the biggest lesson I’ve learned about blogging in 10 years is that blogging is about connections. The thing is, it didn’t really take me 10 years to grasp this. In fact, I blogged about it in my FIRST year. It’s called Why Blogging Is Not Writing and it also came up on the list of reader favourites.
This lesson was reinforced for me in the most painful of circumstances in January when a dear friend of mine – who I met through blogging and with whom I would never have made friends were it not for blogging – lost her beloved husband very suddenly. I think about her every day, and I make contact with her every few days, just to let her know I’m thinking of her. To connect.
If you’re not blogging to connect with people, you’re not doing it right.
Which brings me to…
My favourite posts from 10 years of blogging
These are not the most popular posts. They’re not necessarily the ones that bring the most traffic. They’re the posts that make me smile, the ones that remind me of how blogging really helped me to bring my writing voice down from ‘broadcast’ (think magazines, newspapers, writing for others) to ‘intimate’.
The ones that helped me to develop my inside voice.
Some of them are (gasp) posts I’ve written for other people’s blogs.
And here they are, in no particular order.
Getting ready for Big School is for the birds
It seemed like a good idea at the time
Are you ignoring your best ideas?
In writing, as in life, ride your own race
Words no parent wants to hear: “This could be highly dangerous.”
10 things to do while you’re waiting on your writing (I still hate waiting so I go back to this one often)
The big questions: birds and bees and … whales
So there you have it.
And here are some of those other posts about blogging I mentioned:
My top 3 tips from nine years of author blogging
The one thing I’ve learnt in my fifth year of blogging
Blogging: inviting readers home
12 things I learned in my 2nd year of blogging
Four things I learned in my fourth year of blogging
Three things I’ve learned in my third year of blogging
To those members of my community who have been with me since the Life In A Pink Fibro days, I say thank you for your comments, your encouragement and your support.
To those who’ve discovered the blog more recently, to visit regularly or just to pop in occasionally, I say thank you for jumping on board and sharing my journey.
If you’re new here, welcome! You can find out more about me and the various things I do here and more about my middle-grade books here.
Here’s to another 10 years!
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