The Perks Of Having A Blog
We all have something that has a great significance in our lives. It excites us, scares us and sometimes even intimidates us. This something can either be a talent, a hobby or an interest that becomes a large part of our identity. For me, that something is writing. I write about everything because I find inspiration in everything: crazy experiences, emotions and happy and scattered thoughts.
Two years ago, I became friends with a blogger and everything I knew about the internet changed. She introduced me to an online world where I could share my passion with no restrictions. However, even though I saw a blog as a great opportunity, I was frightened and anxious about it. My own parents hadn’t read some things that I have written. The only people who had read my writing were my sister and really close friends. Sharing it in a personal blog meant that not only family and friends could read it, but strangers from any part of the world too. That in itself made me wait six months before I finally created my first template for my blog. Today, I can say with confidence that creating a blog has been the best decision I have ever made.
Not only did it help me overcome self-doubt about my writing, but it also allowed me to develop my talent even more and to grow an audience. Plus, I have received free feedback on every piece from different types of readers.
At first, it was difficult because with any new project not everyone is going to love it. The majority of the responses were lovely and very supportive, but as the audience kept growing, comments that were not as nice started to arise. Nevertheless, this taught me that even if a response is negative, you still find the positive in it. After all, constructive criticism is good criticism.
As months passed, my blog statistics raised too. I started to receive lovely emails from strangers thanking me because they found support in my entries. Because of those messages, I can say that their words inspired me to keep on writing and to leave all my anxiety behind.
However, I noticed that I could help even more if I shared my experience about suffering severe depression and anxiety. Even though all the fear that I felt when I started my blog returned, I still shared it. I was left speechless with the amount of popularity that my post about depression titled The Ghost of Depression got. It described how difficult it is to manage the hurt and pain that depression brings into your life, but, no matter what, there is always an end.
Since then, I decided to share absolutely everything that I wrote without caring how personal it was. With time, I noticed that those were the most popular posts in my blog, which meant that the more genuine the writing, the more attention it will get.
So if you are thinking about creating a blog, go for it. It can be about anything: food, beauty or about your life in general. It might be hard to maintain a blog with college and work, but I assure you that the perks are worth the effort, time and nervousness that you go through.
