Today is the fifth anniversary of my first blog post!
After all these years, and after expanding, contracting, changing, and expanding my blogging life again, I have a few observations on the territory.
First, I think all the adjustments made over the years have helped me enormously. If I had taken an all-or-nothing approach (post every day, or don’t blog; commit to be consistent for a whole year and not just for this semester; blog only about my core message, with no distractions or tangents) I’d have given up long ago. I needed to wade in with permission to fail, to adjust as needed, to respond to the other realities of my life, and to make blogging a true fit for me rather than mold myself to the blog.
Second, it has been a lonely road, with very little feedback, or sense of a growing readership. This, too, has been good for me in its way. I’ve had to grow better able to give from my heart without demand, to write for my own reasons and not for the sake of these consolations, and to believe nothing is wasted in God’s economy.
Third, a blog is a good place for collecting a body of work gradually. I have begun writing companion essays for a book-length collection of my poems, worked on study guides for Souls at Rest and Souls at Work, pulled together all the ‘homemade humor’ that had been scattered here and there on the web and in print, and made initial ‘essays’ into a few areas I want to explore at a deeper level. The blog itself, with its categories and tags becomes a searchable data base of my writing, enables new connections to form organically, and is an archive for me to draw upon for further development. (You could use a blog for this without making it public at all!)
Finally, all this blogging has helped me find my writing voice and made a place for thoughts and observations that don’t have the gravitas to become major work, but want just that kind of small development to be complete in themselves.
I wish myself “Happy Anniversary” with enthusiasm and anticipation of my next five years. May your blogging adventure be as satisfying as my own.
I’m a new reader and grateful you stuck with it. You echo the thoughts I have on my own blogging journey. It is a wonderful to have this space to ruminate and share.
Congrats in making the blog YOU. That’s marvelous and inspiring.
Thank you for your fifth anniversary post, Charlotte. Congratulations on adapting and sticking to the course. I believe your thoughts reflect that life is a journey and blogging follows suit. This happens to be the first post I have read of yours (I am new to the Catholic Writers Guild blog). As a new blogger myself – just over year one) I find your observations reassuring and inspiring. I am learning to adapt my pacing and content and reflect upon why I am blogging in the first place. I have considered that the information that is being collected might serve additional purposes later and I am able to take some areas into deeper levels. Happy anniversary!