so here is something i have to come to terms with.
maybe i am not your cup of tea.
there are bloggers that keep it 95% positive. there are bloggers that keep it funny. there are photography bloggers and food bloggers and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. there are people who will understand why i just typed etcetera three times instead of saying etc. i appreciate a lot of these blogs and the people behind them, i love reading them, and i’d love to be e-friends with them. let’s follow each other on twitter and talk about our days and be funny and shit. yay connection.
i’m not always positive. i can be intensely, and probably uncomfortably for many, self reflective and such. i’m not the cutest thing, or the snarkiest thing, although i can be both cute and snarky. i talk about some of the food i make, but not with incredible consistency. i shared my photos for a month, and it was awesome, but i don’t consistently post photos (nor do i really believe i’m talented enough to do so).
not everyone is going to like me. not everyone is going to like or appreciate or want to participate in what i’m doing here. that, i pretty much get. what i struggle with, what i intellectually know but don’t have an easy time swallowing is that sometimes the people i like and want to connect with won’t reciprocate.
i also probably worry too much that people don’t or won’t like me. i’m working on it.
i’ll tell you a secret. i started this blog, several years back, fully expecting to integrate with a very specific set of bloggers. while i’m loosely connected to them, i have connected much more deeply with some other amazing people. i did this with a goal, i adapted my tone to achieve that goal, i failed at that tone, i got back to some real me, and i found some people that i truly love. some people that i’ve formed a deep, organic, real connection with. i am so grateful for this – i’m not even sure they know how much.
it’s tumbled around my brain for a long time, all of this. that i came here with my eye on a prize, and was rewarded with a very different one. that you can set out for a goal, and never achieve it, but gain something greater at the end. how to accept that people i might want to connect to possibly have no interest in me.
so i still have questions, and i don’t always know what’s best. the only thing to do is to move forward fully in the direction that gives me the most joy.
That’s cool. I’ll just have like 6 cups of your tea in lieu of people who don’t want any :p
(There is no way that doesn’t sound at least mildly suggestive and I’m cool with that)
and for this i adore you
Get out of my head!
You always articulate perfectly the things that I struggle to put into words. I still struggle. Fill notebooks with things about that which I could write so that I become a niche blogger. I often think about some of the “popular” 20-something bloggers out there (and you know which ones I mean) and wonder what it would take to be indoctrinated into their circle. But then I remember that I’m actually insanely grateful and fortunate to have found you and Kim and Brad and Tizz and Roxanne and everyone else with whom I have built lasting friendships.
I think I’m in a place now where I’m cool with the fact that I’m not that girl. The popular one, the one everyone wants a piece of and that perhaps I don’t fit in with the people I thought I “should” fit in with.
I don’t think you’re that girl either. I think you’re INFINITELY better and the more I learn, the surer I am ♥
i’ve had these thoughts bouncing around my head for months now. i do the same thing – think about how to break in and then remember how lucky i am. i think, perhaps, we are just a different breed. <3
*love* that you wrote “etcetera, etcetera, etcetera”
You are BRILLIANT, love. You are brave for thinking about and writing about this. You are smart for recognizing that it’s okay to still have questions. And I can feel your passion (even through the interwebs) in following the path of joy throughout
So glad to know you! <3
you are so kind, and i’m so glad to know YOU. <3
I have a secret. I don’t really care if anyone reads what I write.
I work very hard to try and get them to read it, true, but when I’m writing it, it’s being written for me. I guess that’s why my blog is pretty schizo itself.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m hoping to one day be rich and successful, but I’m going to do it on my terms, my way.
“Niche” blogging is just another word for “one dimensional.”
The niche blog I do write feels incredibly limiting, and it’s for the one thing I am as passionate about as writing. Still, the walls seem so close when I’m writing that blog.
I like having the expanse of my own personal thoughts, also, and I think it makes me better as a persona and a writer.
Eff everything else, right?
yes, i totally understand. and yes, eff everything else. i’m quite pleased with the crew i’ve fallen into.
word. word to this post.
This is all so smart. And very important for me to read today especially.
I’ve always said that I don’t want to monetize my blog, and I still feel the same. I think most advice out there that suggests writing for a niche audience has that goal in mind–monetization and the sort of growth that surpasses a manageable community. As for keeping it positive–after eleven years of writing online, I have learned to be oblique with the negativity, just because knowing it’s committed online, that people have read it and commented or shared it, that kind of gives it a life of its own.
You know how some metals don’t stick to a magnet, and when you were a kid you would put the magnet against the metal and nothing would happen, but then other metal bits would cling? It’s easy to say that people are missing out when they don’t hang around, or that they have limited time or whatever, but it’s not the Thing. The Thing is to acknowledge whatever it is about your writing (the global “you”, not You specifically) that is truest, because the truest writing will be the most magnetic. And the readers that are going to be drawn to you are going to acknowledge what is most true, and it’s going to make true sense to them, and they will not fill your comments with praise that really means “read me too”, but with their own truth. Which is the only thing worth sharing, anyway. I don’t have time for less than that.
So, I have a story about this… I actually received an email a few months ago from a fellow aid, conflict and development professional who said (in a fit of thoroughly unsolicited feedback) that “my blog would be more popular if I wrote more about conflict and my work” and less about “feelings and shit.” He didn’t say feelings and shit, but he may as well have.
I hear about people writing books — and I’d like to be that person one day.
I hear about platform and niche and genre and all those other words I simply cannot pronounce right.
But then I think about the people whose blogs I like to read, whose lives I am engrossed in, whose stories I can fall in love with. And those are the people who surprise me. The people who serve it up differently every day. It is those people that make me think, that stretch my heart, that make me laugh. It is those people who keep me coming back.
what’s interesting about that is that i DO think your blog is focused on your theme and line of work – you weave what you do into at least every entry that i’ve read. i think it’s refreshing to see someone who has real passion for their work, so much so that they can weave together life, “feelings and shit”, and work into one website. also, let me just say that i kind of want to squee inside that you’re here and visiting me. i am a fan of you <3
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