Hi all, just as a quick heads up, this is going to be a long post. Starting with a little recap of this year, followed by a grateful rant on why I love this blog and ending with why I think you should start a blog too. So, make a cup of coffee or tea or something and take some time to read this post, I hope you enjoy it. I hope (even more) that it inspires you. Not only to start a blog but to get creative.
Last year I started a different blog, where I talked about random topics I found interesting. I really liked getting into the habit of blogging again as I had done in the early years of my puberty. However, I didn't keep up with it and early this year I kind of let it go. I was also busy with my studies, working out, work and my social life, I didn't take the time for it. Well, if this year brought us anything, it was time. Over the course of a few days (in March) my 'entire life', my daily/weekly routine (but I think everyone's routines) fell away. The entire world went into a lockdown. The first weeks I didn't do a lot, I had to make online exams and had two weeks of vacation after. In these weeks I spend a lot of my time on the couch of my boyfriend watching something. Then, I got the offer of a room. Moving out had been on my wishlist for a few months, but this was the first official offer I got. In the course of a week, I suddenly had a new place on my name. Because of Covid-19 and my studies, my family and I took a month to get it all set-up. The room needed a lot of work to make it (I do not want to say liveable, but kind of liveable?) as it is now. A new floor, paint on the walls (that are 4,5 meters high = 15 feet), we installed a kitchenette so that I had more space for my kitchen stuff and many more little things. It was a project, but also made the time flew by. I moved in at the end of May. That was also the time that things started to open again, restaurants (my own work too), gyms, etc. But I had finished my first year. Even more time for myself. So I started planning out this blog. I had been meaning to pick it back up again for the longest time, but my move was in the way. But now came the decision of how I wanted to continue. I decided to create a new blog focused on books since I was a literature student and I love reading. The rest is history, because now we are here, in December, where I want to convince you to start a blog too.
This year has been weird, the weirdest of my 20 years on this earth. Probably the weirdest I will ever have, or at least let's hope so. There are a lot of things that I wish had gone differently this year, an example is the entire Covid-19 situation (who would have guessed?!), but there are also things I am grateful for. Such as this blog. I feel like I found my passion here, I can share, gush about it and have people around me that do the same and feel the same. It's a safe space, my piece of the internet, that I can do anything I want with it. It allows me to grow in my writing, to learn from others, to read more books (because I definitely have been doing that), to talk about them, to think about them. Something that these lockdowns and social distancings kind of took away from us, I took back. Differently, of course, but it did give me a way to not stare at a wall for days on end.
Starting this blog made me realise that I love to take pictures. I did it a lot a few years ago but I kind of stopped. Making pictures (even though they are of books) is challenging and lets me use my creativity in a very different way than writing does. Besides, since I started writing these posts and reading more books I have gotten so many ideas for stories. Fictional stories. As you may know by now, I hope to write and publish my books one day, having this creative flow and just thinking about potential ideas really helps. Once you get into a creative flow, ideas keep coming. At least for me. When I was busy with my last blog I found it hard to come up with new ideas and pictures that fit these posts. Yet because I 'limited' myself to a niche, I felt like I had more opportunities and was able to dive deeper into topics, because I can expect my readers to at least know some things about it already.
Which leads me to why you should start a blog too, and how I recommend you to do it.
If you have a passion for a certain topic, this can literally be anything, you can start a blog. Topics as fashion to books to food to activism to travel to home decor, you name it, are perfect. It really helped me to find a niche. A niche means that you blog between the borders of a certain topic. For me that's books. You can even make it more specific: fantasy novels, etc. I wanted to keep it a bit more broad than that because I do not want to limit my posts to just fantasy, I like the change. Besides, I read a lot for university (not fantasy, sadly), which I like to talk about too, from time to time. But you can make it really specific. Do you like gaming? You can choose a niche about one type of game, or game news, etc. Activism? You can talk about everything, or limit yourself to one piece of it: feminism, etc. Nowadays there's so much to talk about and so much information available chose something you're passionate about and go for it. A good thing on writing in a niche is that your readers know what to expect from you, and are more likely to read more posts because it is something that they're interested in.
If you have a topic, you need a name. I like this part the least because I'm extremely bad at naming (sorry future kids), which is also fun when you want to be a writer :(. Hahah. I hope you see the sarcasm here... But a name is important, the first thing people see is your name so it helps if it fits to the topic. But using your own name is possible too if you keep it more personal. To help you out, there are a lot of different 'random name generators' online, or talk about it with friends and family!
Now, set it all up! I use blogger for my site, since I do not have many readers yet and thus do not earn money from my blog. This blog is a hobby, thus I want to keep it affordable and fun. Blogger is completely free, but I purchased a blog template (the look of my blog) on Etsy for a few euros! I recommend you to do this too, these creators have many templates available and make your blog look a lot better! Please be aware that you buy a template that works for your platform, so a Blogger template does not work for a WordPress blog. Most of these creators are willing to help you set it all up and definitely give you an instruction on how to do it yourself. Slowly I've become a little more used to coding so I tend to figure things out myself (with the help of the internet), but if you do not have any experience with it, you can always ask them!
Instead of Blogger, you can also you other platforms, most of the time they ask for a payment, but include extra things such as a domainname. A domain name is the link people have to type in to reach your blog. As you can see mine is www.pensandpages.nl, if you start your blog with Blogger, your domain name will have .blogger.com, I purchased a domain name to eliminate the .blogger, but this isn't necessary! For my domain name .com wasn't available so I chose .nl as I am from the Netherlands, this can be a problem since the Internet is filled with a lot of sites, so I suggest to keep this in mind when choosing your name!
Okay, so you're blog is set up. Now the fun part! Writing! I posted my first post in August, but I was working on my blog at the end of June and during July. In June I set it all up, in July I started pre-planning my blogposts. Deciding on topics, reading books etc. I wanted to be ahead of things instead of sharing a blog last minute. I have been able to keep this up! I really recommend this strategy, it allows me to post twice a week (in general 10 times a month) and also gives me some breathing room when I am busy. In weeks I have less to do for uni, I can work ahead again. Because I have to read books before I can share a review I sometimes need extra time to finish it, so have pre-written posts means that I can shuffle with my posts. At the start of the month, I make a list with the posts I want to share and the books I want to read. I never make it a must, if I want to write something else that is fine, but it still gives me a direction. I also tend to shoot multiple pictures at once so that I use my time efficiently. To take pictures I have to set things up, and it would be a waste of time to do this many times a week. It also allows me to set up a theme on Bookstagram (but I'm still experimenting with that).
Personally, I like to plan things out, to know what I have to do. It gives me rest and focus, otherwise, it would be a bit of chaos in my head. But do what feels right for you. Do not restrict yourself, although I do recommend to write within a niche. If you don't want to though then that's fine too of course. Thank you for reaching the end of this post, it has been a while since I wrote such a long one. I could definitely write a lot more on this topic and feel free to ask questions if you have any! Last tip: do not try to create a perfect blog from the start, it is impossible and stressing. See blogging as a process, to get to know yourself, your writing style, your interests, etc. It takes a while, but it is so fun to do! If you're still searching for a creative project to take in 2021, definitely try this out! I hope you have fun!
See you in the next one,
Julia
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