What I’ve learned in the past two years
I started this blog about two years ago. I wanted to over a different perspective on fibromyalgia: a humorous & hopeful one. I also wanted to find possibilities of working from home & overall just making my life work with a chronic illness. Here is what I’ve learned about blogging in the past two years.
Enjoy what you do. You might become a blogging celebrity, you might not. The most important thing is to really love writing & interacting with people. Then you will win either way.
There are going to be tough times. No matter what you say or how nice you are, someone will leave you rude comments. You need to have a game plan or policy on how you are going to handle this.
Don’t let your blog take over your life. It’s tempting. Blogging is a lot more consuming then I ever thought it would be, but without friendships it doesn’t matter if I’m successful.
Have a back up plan. Don’t expect your blog to make you money right away, or at all. Even if you start to make money from your blog, don’t count on it as steady income. Have money saved up to get you through the difficult months.
Not everyone will make it big. There are several blogs that say if you do this & this then you will be able to support yourself from blogging. Yes, it takes hard work. It also takes talent & a bit of luck. Sometimes I get discouraged when I see new blogs just take off & I’ve been working at this for two years. However, I also see other blogs fold within a few months because it’s not working. The important thing is to just keep going.
The one thing that I’ve noticed that is different from when I first started is that I’m not as excited. When blogging & making money blogging was new to me I vowed to enjoy every moment. I didn’t know if I could make a living doing this, but I was going to have fun. I need to get that back.
August 9th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I just started blogging more for me than for anyone else. I enjoy learning to do new things and this fits what I want to learn now. I’ve noticed when I start doing something and it becomes work then all the fun is lost. My “real” job is as a massage therapist and when I have to do something that I don’t want to I get all grumpy and my attitude totally changes. Such as when I have to argue with an insurance company over money. Yuck.
But since I know that happens I am able to do something to help my bad attitude by doing something for me so I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing myself to the world and getting nothing in return other than tennis elbow. I would love to make a little money and even be able to work solely from home someday to give my body a break. But I know that this may not be the thing for me…. after all that rambling I’ll say that I know what you mean, don’t loose the fun, and if you do look for it so it doesn’t stay lost forever.