Weekly Blog January 28th, 2018: One Year of Blogging/Happy Anniversary

Hello Internet!

I hope you had a wonderful week! I know I missed last week’s Weekly Blog, but I wanted to make this week’s really good. Plus I was celebrating my last day at my old job (Yay unemployment), so I didn’t get a chance to write it up. But here I am with a new one this week. The second thing I want to say is that I want to give a big Thank You to everyone who read my most recent poem, Spiraling. It was a very emotional poem and I really put my feelings on my sleeves. Everyone seemed to really like it and they showed their support. It was my most popular piece and Wednesday was the most popular day in terms of views. So thank you for all that support. I really appreciate it when I put out a piece and receive a wave of support. It’s really uplifting and fills me with a ton of confidence going forward. Especially since I know very little about poetry and feel like I’m not very good at writing it. Thanks again and I hope you continue to enjoy my pieces going forward.

So now that I’m done with that, I want to say Happy Anniversary!! According to me we’ve reached our official one year anniversary. The idea of the website’s anniversary is a little convoluted because several different dates could be considered the founding day of the website. Technically the website was created in December 2016, the first thing published was early January 2017, and the website went live late January 2017.  January 22nd, 2017 is the exact date the website went live so that’s what I consider to be the founding date. So January 22nd, 2018 is our first year anniversary. Either way I’ve now spent a whole year blogging and releasing creative writing pieces. Now I’ve noticed that a lot of Bloggers and other WordPress users write pieces talking about their experience as a blogger and it is usually titled “One Year of Blogging.” So that’s what I’m going to do!

Looking back on my first few Blogs and Creative Writing Pieces, I can tell how far I’ve come. It doesn’t feel like a lot of progress between piece to piece, but a year can make a huge difference. My writing is so much better (if I do say so myself) and my voice as a writer is much stronger. I stumbled early on not knowing what I should talk about in my Weekly Blogs and I struggled to write more than a few sentences. Now I won’t shut up. There are still some weeks where I struggle to find something to talk about, but when I find my stride, I can write and write and write. I am much more comfortable writing my opinions and launching them out into the world. It also seems like I’m getting better at cultivating my audience and bringing more people into our community. A lot of that also falls on you and all the other wonderful writers and artists who fill WordPress with their content. The people who share their art as well as support people like me, really make this place special.

I honestly don’t know what else I’m supposed to say. I guess I’ll say this. Even though my website didn’t spring into instant popularity with a million followers, I’m still having a wonderful time writing for all of you. I can’t even imagine what a million followers would look like. That would be so overwhelming, I imagine. But within the first year and some I’ve published 171 different posts (including this one) ranging from talking about Critical Role and Dungeons and Dragons, Net Neutrality, Cinemagraphs, The Nintendo Switch, New Year’s Resolutions, and so much more. That’s crazy considering that’s not including all the topic I’ve touched on in both my Poetry and my Creative Writing and Writing Prompt pieces. I didn’t know that my writing could be that varied and I didn’t know that this would become one of my greatest accomplishments. Truly something that I look forward to as I put in some late nights writing and improving the website. This is something where I can see my hard work paying off. I mean, people from South Africa or Ireland or Australia are reading my stuff as well as the people I know in my personal life (Shout out to all of you!). It’s just so crazy. And the craziest part is that I’m way more nervous to have my personal friends and family read my stuff over someone from Brazil or Japan.

One last thing I want to touch on is that even though I’m not some huge superstar Blogger hitting up hotels for free boarding in exchange for “free publicity and exposure,” I am a Blogger. I am a writer. A writer with a lot to learn and a skill I still need to get better at, but a writer nonetheless. And you can too. Whatever your dream is, make it happen. It won’t happen overnight. It might not even happen within years, decades of getting started. But if you don’t take that first step forward, if you don’t start on it, it will never get done. I could have spent the last year wishing I was a writer. Wishing people would follow me on social media and read my stuff. But instead, I wrote. I practiced and practiced and practiced. Yeah sometimes the pieces aren’t as good as they could be. Maybe they were rushed. Maybe I lost motivation halfway through. Maybe I need a good editor (that’s a big one!). But they are still my creations. I wrote them. They are my words on a paper/screen. The fact that I am a writer is amazing. So whatever your dream is, chase it. Chase it with every fiber of your being. Start on your journey and follow it through. It’s going to be a long journey, but you’re going to be so happy you started it. Even if it doesn’t work out or has a bunch of twists and turns, it’s going to be a lot better than the alternative where you just sat there and wished it could happen. Wanting it is one thing, but doing it is the much bigger thing.

So yeah I’m now a year into Blogging and publishing on WordPress. I’ve made a ton of progress both in growing this community and enhancing my writing ability. I hope you enjoyed that Blog and that look back on a year of writing. If you did like this blog, please feel free to give it a like or leave a comment down below. I’d love to hear from you. Maybe you can tell me your favorite piece I’ve written or talk about your experience as a Blogger or Writer. I’d love to hear about it. If Blogging isn’t your thing, well I also write a ton of Creative Writing pieces. Humanities Only Hope (Part 2) is my most recent Writing Prompt piece. It’s all about humans using magic to fight aliens. So if that’s your thing, check it out. If not, there are plenty of other things to read. If you spend a moment checking out my website, I’m sure you can find something that you want to read.

Thank you again for all your support and I hope you have a fantastic week!

-Allen_The_Writer

 

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